


TALES OF A WOLF: year one

by CrystalFlame101



Series: TALES OF A WOLF [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, First War with Voldemort, Hogwarts First Year, MWPP, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Marauders Friendship (Harry Potter), POV Remus Lupin, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Self-Esteem Issues, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Werewolves, Young James Potter, Young Peter Pettigrew, Young Remus Lupin, Young Sirius Black, jily, slight body horror, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25872565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrystalFlame101/pseuds/CrystalFlame101
Summary: Remus centric, long haul marauders story describing their time at HogwartsMostly Canon CompliantI do not own Harry Potter!Some of these ideas have probably been used before but oh well.
Relationships: Remus Lupin & James Potter, Remus Lupin & Lily Evans Potter, Remus Lupin & Minerva McGonagall, Remus Lupin & Peter Pettigrew, Sirius Black & Remus Lupin, Sirius Black & Remus Lupin & Peter Pettigrew & James Potter, eventual James Potter/Lily Evans Potter - Relationship, maybe eventual Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Series: TALES OF A WOLF [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2113413
Comments: 15
Kudos: 35





	1. Preface

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sarah_smiles17](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarah_smiles17/gifts).



Hope and Lyall Lupin had once had the ideal life. Loving couple with a beautiful little boy, homey cottage and steady jobs. Then, on a cold February evening in 1965, tragedy struck. A few days after Fenrir Greyback, a werewolf who Lyall had recently tried to sentence to death, escaped, Remus, their four year old son, was running around outside, chasing bugs and whatnot. His mother had been knitting on the porch but had gone inside to get some tea. Remus sat heavily on the recently revealed grass, looking up at the full moon that sat surrounded by twinkling stars and inky darkness. Remus loved the moon - often, he and his mother went outside on nights like these to enjoy the ethereal glow that the orb cast down. Unlike the sun, it didn’t hurt Remus’ eyes to look into it and wasn’t a blinding yellow that overpowered the rest of the sky. It was more subtle, like Remus himself. As he sat, panting slightly, he heard a sudden rustle in the brush behind him. Smiling with the innocence only a child could possess, Remus got to his feet and headed towards the sound, hoping to find a rabbit. However, once he got close enough, he saw a pair of eyes that were much too large to belong to a rabbit. 

“Mama…?” he called uncertainly behind him. Just then, an immense grey wolf jumped out from behind the brush, knocking the now-screaming boy to the ground.    
“REMUS!” he heard from his cottage, then the sound of running footsteps. Remus, however, couldn’t answer - fangs were pinning him down by the hip, and Remus could barely breathe around the pain. 

“Impedimenta!” he heard from behind him, in what he faintly recognized to be his father’s desperate voice, the wolf being knocked off of him. Then, his mother sobbing his name was the last thing he heard before his vision went black. 

Six years and six months later, everything had changed. The Lupin family moved from town to town, never staying in the same place for longer than a year or two, terrified that one of the villagers would discover their son’s secret. Lyall kept the identity of the werewolf attacker from his son, feeling incredibly guilty. Scared of what should happen if their son were to have a slip of the tongue, Hope and Lyall discouraged Remus from befriending any of the other children in their various villages. So, despite his loving parents, Remus grew up quite lonely. Then, Saturday, the nineteenth of June, 1971, everything changed again. With only his father home, as his mother was at the grocery store, Remus was lying in the living room of their current house, playing a lonesome game of gobstones, when there was an impromptu knock on their door. Lyall frowned from his spot on the couch and went to open it - after all, a rogue salesman wasn’t so uncommon in their little village. Remus, bored, looked up at the door to see how his father would shoo the person away - and then paused at how… strange the visitor looked. He had rib-length hair with a beard nearly as long, half-moon glasses, penetrating blue eyes and the most bizarre cloak Remus had ever seen - it was purple and pink, with fur trimming. Fur trimming in the summer! Remus looked at his father, waiting for him to inform the man that he had no interest in whatever was being sold, when he faltered again at the expression on Lyall’s worn face. He looked absolutely terrified, as though he’d seen a ghost. The newcomer, on the other hand, was beaming. 

“Ah, Lyall,” he said in a surprisingly deep voice. “How nice to see you again. May I come in?” Without waiting for an answer, the man walked past Remus’ father and into the living room, smiling at Remus as he took a seat on the divan. “And you must be Remus!” the stranger exclaimed. This statement seemed to shake Lyall from his stupor, and he stormed into the living room. 

“Dumbledore,” he said a little unevenly. “Not to be rude, of course, but what are you doing here?” Dumbledore simply continued to smile at Remus’ dad. 

“I’m here, of course, because your son is now at the age where he should attend Hogwarts!” he boomed. Remus started - he had heard of Hogwarts from his father, of course, but had always been told by his parents that he would be homeschooled. Apparently, Lyall was thinking along the same lines as Remus. His face smoothed out. 

“Ah,” he said. “Well, we appreciate the offer, but my wife and I have decided to homeschool Remus,” he informed Dumbledore apologetically, his eyes hard. Dumbledore’s eyebrows rose. 

“Homeschool him?” he asked lightly. “Whatever for? Surely you don’t expect to be able to teach him about subjects such as Care of Magical Creatures in your house!” Lyall crossed his arms, looking uncomfortable. 

“We just want to spend time with our son,” he muttered. Dumbledore chuckled. 

“Now, Lyall. I am already aware of your son’s… condition,” Dumbledore said, to Remus’ shock. Lyall stared open-mouthed at Dumbledore, before snapping his jaw closed. 

“Condition?” he forced a laugh. “I’m terribly sorry, but to what are you referring, Albus?” Dumbledore turned towards Remus instead of answering. 

“Remus,” he said gently. “Would you very much like to go to school?” he posed. Remus looked between his father, who looked affronted, and Dumbledore, who looked bening, though his eyes were twinkling. 

“I… yes, but, it isn’t safe,” Remus said in a small voice, hoping he hadn’t said the wrong thing. Dumbledore nodded and turned back to Lyall. 

“I have put up certain precautions for your son’s transformations,” he informed him. “He will be perfectly safe, and our mediwitch, Madame Pomfrey, is happy to look after Remus after the full moon,” Dumbledore said pleasantly. Lyall flinched at the words ‘transformations’ and ‘full moon’ but looked at Dumbledore with pure gratitude in his eyes.    
“I…” he cleared his throat. “Yes,” he breathed. “Yes, of course Remus will go to school.”    
“Excellent!” Dumbledore smiled. “Then take this,” he handed a folded up parchment to Lyall, “and I’ll see you on the first of September, Remus.” With that, Dumbledore strolled out of the Lupin abode and disappeared with a  _ crack. _ Remus stared up at his father in awe. 

“I’m going to school?” he whispered. His father gave him a teary smile, and nodded. Remus whooped and rushed over to embrace his father, already looking forward to September.


	2. Chapter one

Remus stood on platform nine and three quarters with his parents, uncomfortably watching all the students around him mill around. Thanks to his lycanthropy, Remus had always been sheltered - he mostly only ever spent time with his mother and father. His father, Lyall Lupin, was a kind man, though often crass. Once, while fixing the roof of their house a few years ago, Lyall had dropped a hammer on his hand. The resulting curses that had flown out of his mouth had made Hope shout “Lyall!” extremely loudly. His mother, Hope Lupin, née Howell, was much more soft-spoken, and tried very hard to listen to Remus when he came to her with his troubles. She was a kind, hard-working woman, and a Muggle. She had had quite a shock when Lyall revealed his magic, but had accepted it with open arms. Now, his parents were both looking at him fondly, if a little cautiously and apprehensive. Though eleven, Remus was pretty bright - he knew what was coming. Indeed, his father opened his mouth not 5 seconds after Remus had started mentally preparing for the upcoming speech. 

“Now, son,” Lyall started. “You know that in our society, people of your… kind, shall we say, are heavily frowned upon. Should anyone find out about you, we’ll all be in big shit with the Ministry. So, just… be careful, okay?” Remus knew that his father half-wanted to say “don’t make friends” but didn’t really know how. Remus’ mum looked at him through slightly damp eyes. 

“We love you, baby. Don’t ever forget that,” she said, then pulled Remus into her embrace. Remus sighed inwardly, but returned his mother’s embrace, then his father’s. Then, finally, after months, he was boarding the Hogwarts Express and not looking back, lest he change his mind and run back home to hide. Instead, Remus tilted his chin up, took a deep breath and walked down the aisle of the train, looking for a compartment. Finally, near the end of the train, he found an empty one. When he sat on the leather-cushioned bench, he immediately slumped - the full moon was in four days, September fifth, and his bones were already starting to tire. He quickly changed into his robes, wanting to get it out of the way so he didn’t forget. Curling in on himself, he closed his eyes for only a moment. 

When he opened them, the sky was darkening and he could hear voices in his compartment. Without moving the rest of his body, he observed the two other people in the compartment, both of them talking in hushed tones, hunched over a piece of parchment. They were both redheads, and clearly related, the only difference in appearance seeming to be that one of them had a ring in his ear. They looked to be the same age, and much older than Remus. One of them - the one without the ring - noticed Remus’ gaze and nudged his brother, who stopped talking immediately. Then, they were both looking at him and Remus wasn’t quite sure what to do. So, he carefully sat up, blinking a few times. The brothers exchanged glances, then grinned identical smiles at him.    
“Hey, mate,” Lip Ring said cheerfully. “Surprised you woke up - was sure you’d topped it for a second there. I’m Fabian, and this is my brother, Gid.” Gid saluted from beside his brother. 

“I-I’m Remus,” Remus answered, a little dazed. 

“First year?” Gid asked curiously. Remus nodded and the brothers grinned again. 

“Well!” Fabian exclaimed. “As seventh years, we feel it is our duty to warn you of a few things-”

“- like Filchie,” Gid interrupted. “You see, he’s the caretaker, has been for two years now. Mind, he’s a right old git,” Gid said casually. Fabian nodded enthusiastically. 

“Oh, yeah,” he agreed. “I mean, honestly, who cares if we’re trying to fly a Niffler through the window at three in the morning? Isn’t his business, is it?” Remus couldn’t help himself; he snorted in amusement - even though he shouldn’t even be talking to others, these two brothers were very charismatic. Their grins only grew at his reaction.    
“Lookie here!” Gid exclaimed. “A firstie with a sense of humour!” Fabian hollered dramatically and Remus grinned. 

“What else should I be worried about?” he asked dryly. Gid pointed at him with a great air of importance. 

“We’re so glad you asked, young Remus. Well, if you must know, Peeves is the thing of nightmares…” and for the next hour or so, Remus was entertained by the two exhuberant brothers, who seemed to enjoy telling dramatic tales of their many escapades from punishment throughout their school years. Then, right when Remus thought his abdomen would burst from the pain of laughing so hard, the train came to a stop. The brothers saluted him one more time before leaving, chatting between themselves about some type of food. Remus, following the twins’ instructions, left his trunk where it was, knowing it would appear in whatever dorm he was to be placed in. 

“Firs’ years!” he heard a heavily accented voice calling. Looking around, Remus saw a very large man waving a lantern around, shouting for first years to come to him. After maybe fifteen minutes, in which time all the older kids climbed into horseless carriages, only first years remained. Looking around at his peers, a few different people caught Remus’ attention out of the 45 or so gathered. First, a terrified looking pudgy blonde boy with watery blue eyes who was the only one making little whimpering noises. A little to his left, two kids were whispering quietly to each other. One of them, the girl, had long red locks and big green eyes, whereas the boy had pasty skin and limp black hair. Then, right next to Remus stood two boys, both with black hair, and both laughing at each other, neither looking scared in the least. Resolving to look as put together as them, Remus stood a little straighter and carefully arranged his face to look devoid of fear. The big man, who introduced himself as Hagrid, was now pointing them towards a bunch of boats, instructing them to enter them in groups of four. Remus finds himself with the blonde boy, a girl with two pigtails and another girl with huge glasses. None of them really talk much as Hagrid prattles cheerily on about the school. Though Remus’ father had told him that Hogwarts was a castle, his breath was still taken away when the school came into view. It was massive, and Remus found himself imagining exploring the whole thing, hopefully with a candlestick in his hand, like he had once read in an old novel. He heard the girl in pigtails let out a dreamy sigh and smiled at her. She smiled back, then opened her mouth.  _ Oh no, _ Remus thought.  _ I’m not supposed to talk to people!  _ Thankfully, Remus was saved by the boat hitting the stone of the castle drawbridge with a faint  _ thud.  _

“Alright, ev’ryone out!” Hagrid shouted. He walked them to a door which flung open as soon as Hagrid’s sizable knuckles rapped on it. In front of the first years now stood a tall witch with black hair tied tightly in a bun on top of her head. 

“Hagrid,” she greeted him severely. “I can take them from here,” and with that, she swept to the side, clearly wanting the first years to come in. The two black haired boys stepped up first, sauntering through the door. The rest of them followed after them, Remus being jostled a little bit. Once they were all inside, the witch closed the door. 

“Good evening. I am Professor McGonagall,” McGonagall said evenly. “In a few short minutes, you will all be sorted into your respective school houses. They are: Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Gryffindor.” At Gryffindor, Remus saw one of the black haired boys, the darker-skinned one, nudge the other with a grin. However, his friend just grimaced a little. “I’m going to go inform the Headmaster that we are ready to proceed. I suggest you all take this time to freshen up as best you can,” McGonagall said, then swept out of the room from a different door than the one they entered from. Remus flattened his hair and smoothed down his robe, nervous. He saw several other students doing the same. The red-headed girl was anxiously twirling her hair, while her friend tried to comfort her. The pudgy boy was wiping his eyes, which still looked watery to Remus. 

“I’m Malia,” a voice suddenly said next to Remus. Remus turned to see the girl with pigtails smiling at him. Deciding that it would draw negative attention to himself if he didn’t answer, Remus smiled tightly back. 

“Remus,” he said. Malia didn’t seem put off by his slightly clipped answer and kept smiling. 

“Nice to meet you. Do you know much about the houses?” she asked and Remus thought for a moment. 

“My father only told me about Ravenclaw - that was his house. Apparently, smart kids go there or something,” Remus replied honestly. Malia appeared to ponder this. She hummed thoughtfully. 

“Huh. Do you think you’ll go there, then? Like your dad?” Remus only had to think for a second about that one.    
“Probably. I really like reading, and I’ve always liked learning new things,” he answered. Malia smiled at him again. 

“Me too! Hey, maybe we’ll end up in the same house!” she said excitedly. Before Remus could even freak out a little at this girl’s excitement for friendship, McGonagall was back and leading them out the door, into a crowded room with 5 tables. One that was decorated in silver and green, one in yellow and black, one in bronze and blue, one in red and gold and one that was just plain wood. The wooden one seemed to be the staff’s table, whereas the colourful tables contained a bunch of uniformed children. In front of the whole room sat a stool with an old hat resting on it. Remembering the twins he had met on the train and their tales, Remus knew that this was the Sorting Hat. Fabian had tried to tell Remus that the hat would chew his hair off, but Remus didn’t quite believe him - his eyes had seemed far too mischievous. Suddenly, he heard his name being shouted. 

“Oi! Remus! Remember what we told you!” Gid was yelling from the red table, smirking along with his brother. Dumbledore chuckled from his place in the middle of the staff table. 

“Thank you, Mr Prewett. Now!” he boomed, “let the Sorting ceremony begin! When you hear your name, please step up to the stool. But first, let me introduce: the Sorting Hat!” 

Suddenly a rip appeared in the middle of the hat, in the distinct shape of a mouth. Bewildered, Remus watched and listened as the hat started to sing: 

_ “One thousand years ago this story starts _

_ There were four sorcerers with strong and kind hearts _

_ Bold Gryffindor from wild moor _

_ Fair Ravenclaw from glen _

_ Sweet Hufflepuff from valley broad _

_ Shrewd Slytherin from fen _

_ They had a dream to teach all that they knew _

_ Witches and wizards came far and it grew _

_ 'Til a castle stood tall by the shores of a lake _

_ And a thousand years later the magic remains _

_ Old Hogwarts Sorting Hat sing me a song _

_ Speak in my head tell me where I belong _

_ And when things look bad and there's nowhere to run _

_ Unite all the houses and we'll fight as one _

_ Brave Godric Gryffindor favoured the strong _

_ Those who had courage and knew right from wrong _

_ And Rowena Ravenclaw taught only the best _

_ So kind Helga Hufflepuff would teach all the rest _

_ But Salazar Slytherin had is own plans _

_ He thought the Muggle-borns didn't understand _

_ The subtleties of magic and so he devised _

_ The Chamber of Secrets with a monster inside _

_ Old Hogwarts Sorting Hat sing me a song _

_ Speak in my head tell me where I belong _

_ And when things look bad and there's nowhere to run _

_ Unite all the houses and we'll fight as one _

_ Old Hogwarts Sorting Hat sing me a song _

_ Speak in my head tell me where I belong _

_ And when things look bad and there's nowhere to run _

_ Unite all the houses and we'll fight as one” _

Once the hat had closed its brim again, the room burst into applause, Remus included. The Prewetts were standing on their bench, whooping and hollering. McGonagall stepped forward again with a large scroll in her hand. She cleared her throat before calling out:    
“Albion, Christopher!” 

A short brunette darted up to the stool, sitting down looking slightly anxious. McGonagall dropped the hat onto his head. It slipped down past his eyes. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then, the hat opened it’s brim and shouted “RAVENCLAW!” and the blue and bronze table erupted into cheers. Christopher handed the hat back to McGonagall and walked over to the Ravenclaw table. Three more kids got sorted before Remus recognized someone. 

“Black, Sirius!” was called and the paler black haired boy skipped up to the stool. He sat down, had the hat jammed on his head and then started fidgeting almost immediately. After a few seconds, the hat called out: “GRYFFINDOR!” This time, though, unlike the previous four, no one cheered. When Sirius ripped the hat off his head, his skin was incredibly pale. Remus even heard some angry muttering coming from the direction of the Slytherin table. Finally, McGonagall’s hand came down on Sirius’ shoulder gently, nudging him off the stool and towards the red table. That seemed to reawaken Sirius, who walked on his own down to the Gryffindor table, though he still seemed rather shocked. After a few more uncomfortable seconds, McGonagall called the next name. 

“Bulstrode, Jack,” became a Slytherin, and the sorting continued. Once again, it took a few students before Remus paid real attention to the Sorting. 

“Evans, Lily,” McGonagall said, and the redhead rushed towards the stool. The hat didn’t even take five seconds before it was shouting out “GRYFFINDOR!” The girl looked incredibly disappointed as she walked over to the cheering Gryffindor table, giving her friend a sad smile. Malia was the next on Remus’ radar to get sorted. 

“Gibson, Malia!” Malia walked nervously to the stool, looking back at Remus who had to smile encouragingly. She nodded at him and sat down. The hat was on her head for even less time than Lily before it shouted “RAVENCLAW”, just as Malia had predicted. She beamed and walked down to the cheering table. Finally, after a few more students, it was Remus’ turn. 

“Lupin, Remus!” McGonagall said, and Remus saw Fabian grin at him. He went up to the stool and took a deep breath as he sat down. When McGonagall placed the hat on his head, it obscured his vision and he saw only darkness.    
“ _ Well, well…”  _ he heard a tinny voice in his head muse. “ _ A werewolf! Now that’s a first.”  _ Remus fought the urge to tear the hat off his head and run far away when he heard ‘werewolf’. 

_ “Not to worry,”  _ the hat said, “ _ I won’t tell your secret…. No…. now, you do have a nice mind here… yes, very intelligent, aren’t you? Hmm…”  _ Remus was a little shocked that the hat could read his mind but after everything he had seen today, he wasn’t all that fazed.  _ “Brilliant mind, maybe, but… I sense there are bigger traits that would shine through, were you placed in  _ GRYFFINDOR!” The last word was shouted for the whole room to hear, and Remus was blinking against the sudden light that assaulted his eyes once the hat was lifted. Distinctly, he could hear the Prewett brothers wolf-whistling for him. Dazed, Remus walked down to the Gryffindor table, where Fabian grabbed him around the shoulders and tousled his hair. Remus, who had never really had much physical contact aside from his adult parents, jerked. Fabian didn’t even notice, just shoved Remus onto the bench next to him, apparently deciding Remus was his pet first year. It took Remus a couple minutes to remember to watch the others get sorted, returning from zoning out right when the pudgy boy walked (or stumbled, really) up to the stool. The hat stayed on the boys for a very long time - so long that even the teachers started murmuring amongst themselves. Finally, the hat called out “GRYFFINDOR!” and the pudgy blonde boy shoved the hat at McGonagall and walked very fast towards the red table, looking extremely excited. Right after the pudgy boy had sat down, another name was called:    
“Potter, James,” and the other black haired boy was waltzing up to the stool, looking confident as anything. Unlike the blonde boy, the hat had barely touched James’ head before it shouted “GRYFFINDOR!” and James was swaggering to the Gryffindor table, amidst cheers. Remus heard him sit next to Sirius and congratulate him quietly. 

“You were right, mate! You really aren’t like them,” he said excitedly. Remus had no idea who “them” was, but Black clearly did, as Remus heard him say “I told you so,” quite happily. Remus had once again missed a few sortings, but tried his best to tune back in. 

“Shaw, Julian,” an elvish looking boy was sorted into Hufflepuff, looking relieved by it.

“Snape, Severus,” was called, and Lily’s friend was stalking towards the stool. He had an odd way of walking, sort of like a bat, Remus thought. For Severus, the hat took a good thirty seconds to decide before shouting “SLYTHERIN!” Snape shot one displeased look over at the Gryffindor table, and then went to take his place in Slytherin. Finally, after “Zaver, Lori,” was placed in Hufflepuff, Dumbledore stood up again, beaming. 

“Now!” he exclaimed, energetic as ever. “Let us sing the Hogwarts Anthem!” He waved his hands and words appeared in midair in front of him. 

“You sing the words to the rhythm of whatever melody you want,” Gid whispered to Remus. He winked and then opened his mouth to start signing. Remus decided to sing a muggle song his mother loved - life on mars? By David Bowie. The album had been released earlier that year, and Hope had immediately bought the vinyl. Thinking of the track just made Remus miss his mother, and their record player. Shaking off the homesick feelings, Remus sang along as best he could, joining the cacophony of voices. Next to him, the Prewett twins were singing another popular Muggle song - Paint it, Black, by the Rolling Stones. Older than Bowie, but Remus owned that album on vinyl too. Finally, once the last person (Dumbledore) had sung the final note of his song, Dumbledore cleared his throat once more. 

“I have a few things to say: Acid Pops! Cats! Elastic bands and walnuts! Now; dig in!” he announced, then sat back down and immediately started ladling his plate with beef stew. 

Looking around, Remus realized he was ravenous - he had eaten nothing on the train! He lathered his own plate in chicken pot pie, and just as he was raising his first bite to his lips, he heard his name. 

“Mr. Lupin,” it was Professor McGonagall. “If you would please come with me,” she said, already starting to walk away. Quickly, Remus scrambled after her, feeling people’s eyes on him. 

“What’d he do to get in trouble on the first night?” he heard someone whisper behind him. Ignoring this, and the stares, Remus followed McGonagall, trying in vain to ignore the rumbling of his stomach. He and his new teacher walked in silence, arriving at a classroom door some minutes later. Once inside with the door closed (and locked), McGonagall sat behind the teacher’s desk, indicating for Remus to take the chair facing her. He did, wringing his hands slightly. McGonagall simply eyed him for a few seconds, before opening her mouth to speak. 

“Mr. Lupin, as deputy Headmistress, and head of Gryffindor house, I am one of the members of the staff who have been informed of your… situation,” she said bluntly. Remus avoided her eye in shame - he knew society’s beliefs on peop- no,  _ beasts _ like him. “So, it is my duty to explain to you  _ how _ exactly your transformations will work in a safe way.” Remus nodded mutely. McGonagall proceeded to tell him about the Whomping Willow that had just been planted specifically for his transformations, and the secret tunnel that led to the Shrieking shack. 

“Hang on,” Remus interrupted, frantic. “What if someone goes into the shack?” McGonagall gave him a wry look. 

“Naturally, we’ve thought of that - it is heavily warded against anyone entering, and I guarantee that no one can break Albus’ spells.” Remus nodded, relieved and McGonagall continued. She told Remus that Madame Pomfrey would escort him to and from the shack, and heal him as best she could after the transformation. Remus was a little shocked by all the measures Dumbledore had gone to just so that Remus could attend school. When he voiced this to McGonagall, she frowned at him. 

“You deserve an education as much as anyone, Remus,” she said, using his given name for the first time during the hour or so they’d been in the room. Remus averted his gaze, biting his tongue to keep from saying what he wanted to -  _ No, I don’t. I’m dangerous, I turn into a monster.  _ McGonagall was still watching him, though, so he said nothing. 

“That is besides the point,” she finally said. “The point is, you’re here and we’re going to do everything we can to keep you and the other students safe. I assume that I don’t need to tell you that your condition is to be kept secret?” she asked. Remus snorted, unable to stop himself. 

“No, Professor,” he answered, embarrassed at his own outburst. She gave him an unreadable look before pulling out her wand. He jerked back in surprise; she wasn’t going to punish him, was she? Surely his snort hadn’t been  _ that _ impolite? He didn’t really know basic social grace - he had never had to learn! But no, he relaxed, she had just made a plate of ham sandwiches appear. 

“You must be starving,” she said, eyes narrowed at his reaction. He gave her a weak smile and a few words of gratitude before eating four whole sandwiches. Once he was done, she gave him some cookies and pumpkin juice, after which he felt pleasantly full. 

“Thank you,” he repeated. She only nodded, then escorted him to Gryffindor tower, seeing as he had missed the Prefects’ tour. She told him the password, showed him to his dorm and then left. All the other boys were in bed by the time Remus entered his dorm, so, as quietly as he could, he changed into his pyjamas, climbed into the only empty bed left, closed the pale blue hangings and fell asleep in minutes. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sorting hat song is not mine! Here's the link to the song:   
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=autoshare&v=L_F9IO9i2lA&app=desktop 
> 
> Also, should I continue with this story??


	3. Chapter 2

When Remus woke up, he had no idea where he was. He lay in his four-poster bed, staring at light blue curtains that he didn’t recognize in the least. Then, quite suddenly, all the events of the previous day came rushing back to him. He groaned, horrified at himself for talking to not 1, not 2, but 3 other students! Good thing the Prewetts weren’t in his year, or even close to it - they’d probably decide against talking to him again. _And_ , he thought to himself, relieved (though with a twinge of disappointment), _Malia isn’t even in my house!_ Feeling less guilty, Remus stepped out of bed, yawning, then checked the time on his old watch. It was eight o’clock, which was fine - Professor McGonagall told him that classes usually started at nine thirty, and breakfast started around seven thirty. Looking around the dorm, Remus wondered briefly if the other boys knew that they should probably get up soon. Counting quickly, he saw five beds, all with their curtains still drawn. Remus had already forgotten the names of two of his roommates - the pudgy blonde boy and a tall, skinny brunette with quite a few zits. The other three, he thought he could recall. For starters, there was Sirius Black, the kid who had gotten no applause. Remus was pretty sure he remembered him talking to another Gryffindor boy all throughout the time before the Sorting ceremony - James something. Palmer? Pewter? Remus couldn’t be sure, but he knew what the boy looked like, more or less. He had wild black hair and darker-toned skin, sort of like a light caramel. Then, the last boy, Kevin Baas, was olive-skinned with a buzz cut. Just then, a curtain was ripped open, pulling Remus out of his thoughts. Looking up, Remus was met with the grinning face of James Pewter. His bed was apparently only two spots away from Remus. Idly, Remus wondered who was in the bed separating them. Focusing again, Remus noticed James climbing out of bed, yawning and stretching. 

“Y’know what time it is?” he asked loudly. Remus winced, looking around at the other beds, before telling James, much more quietly, that it was about eight o’five. James nodded then knelt down to his trunk to begin pulling his school stuff out. 

“Wicked!” he exclaimed. Remus glanced over and saw him waving a red and gold tie at him. He frowned, perplexed. 

“It’s just a tie,” he answered, confused. James chuckled good-naturedly. 

“No, mate. Check yours - you probably got one too!” 

Remus walked over to his trunk, feeling a little apprehensive. Sure enough, when he opened it, he immediately noticed 3 ties that definitely hadn’t been there before and looked identical to James’ lying on top of his secondhand uniform. He pulled one out, shocked. 

“My dad said this would happen, but I didn’t really believe him,” James rambled, pulling his shirt off. Remus instantly started panicking - was he expected to change right here, in front of everyone? He couldn’t do that, he had his bite scar, and a few smaller ones from his own claws criss-crossing his body. To Remus’ huge relief, another curtain was opened, and the scowling face of the acne-riddled boy appeared. 

“Would you keep it down?” he snapped. “Some of us are trying to get a little more sleep.” With that, he closed the curtains again dramatically. Before James could start talking again, Remus excused himself to the bathroom, grabbing his uniform before he left. The bathroom, it turned out, was huge. Which made sense, he supposed, if they were six boys all sharing it. Indeed, there were ten different sinks, ten stalls, ten urinals, ten shower curtains, behind which Remus assumed were showerheads. Then, in the middle of the room was a… fountain? While Remus had no idea why it was there, it was certainly nice to look at. It had a mural pattern, with the exterior markings of a seashell painted along the sides. Remus, finished admiring the strange fountain, walked into one of the stalls, once again surprised at the size of it. It was basically the size of what Remus would’ve called a normal-sized bathroom. There was a bench, some hooks, a full length mirror behind the door and, most strangely, a pallet of breath mints. Perhaps Dumbledore was worried they wouldn’t brush their teeth. Putting the matter out of his mind, Remus quickly changed into his uniform, then headed back into the dorm. Though he was only gone for five to ten minutes, the dorm looked significantly different. All five boys were arguing, and by what Remus could tell, it was over an alarm that had gone off at eight fifteen. None of the boys were admitting to having set the alarm. Remus frowned - if none of the boys had set the alarm, it was probably one of the teachers, the timer set in place to make sure none of them were late. Deciding against sharing his theory, Remus quietly slunk over to his trunk, ignoring the yelling, and grabbed his tie, trying to figure out how to tie it properly. After a few tries, he gave up, tying the tie into an unorganized knot, praying no one would notice, though knowing they would. By now, the arguing had gone down and the boys seemed to have come to the same conclusion as Remus - a teacher set it up. Remus, not wanting to get caught in another conversation with James, or anyone, for that matter, quickly went down to breakfast. When he got there, the Gryffindor table was already pretty filled up. Remus noticed the Prewetts sitting at the far end of the table, once again talking quietly amongst themselves. Remus ducked his head, not wanting to be noticed. He sat at the close end of the table, putting some good distance between himself and everyone else. _Should’ve brought a book_ , Remus thought to himself as he buttered a crumpet. He reminded himself that his father had told him about Hogwarts’ impressive library, and resolved to find it that afternoon, after classes. Dreaming about all the different books that he might find, Remus quickly zoned out, paying no attention to the world around him. All of a sudden, a body landed next to Remus, who was so startled he dropped his crumpet. Looking to his right, he saw James had taken a seat next to him and Sirius across from them. Remus said nothing about it, hoping they would simply talk to each other and let Remus enjoy his lonesome. For a while, it worked. The two of them chattered on to each other about some new store that had just opened up in Diagon Alley, Remus saying nothing, only listening. Eventually, though, Sirius cleared his throat. 

“Hi,” he said cheerfully, once Remus had looked up. “I’m Sirius Black,” he added. Knowing that not doing so would attract more attention, Remus shook his extended hand. 

“Remus Lupin,” he replied. Sirius grinned at him. 

“I’m James Potter,” James said from beside Remus. So it wasn’t Pewter after all. 

“What’s your Quidditch team?” Sirius asked Remus eagerly. Remus frowned. He never went to Quidditch games - he didn’t even _know_ many teams, let alone actually support one in particular. 

“Er- Caerphilly Catapults,” Remus said, naming the first and only Welsh team he knew. Sirius and James both raised their eyebrows. 

“No offence, mate, but why would you like _them_? They haven’t won a game in over twenty years!” James said, incredulous. Remus shrugged. 

“I grew up in Wales,” he answered truthfully. Before his whole life went to shit, he had lived in an amazing cottage in northern Wales. Since then, he had moved all throughout the United Kingdom, mostly staying in Britain. He still remembered the cottage, though - its beautiful backyard, the porch where his mother used to sit and knit, the wildflowers that grew right in front of the small forest. 

“So why don’t you cheer for the Harpies?” Sirius asked. Remus shrugged again, though this time because he had had no idea that there was more than one Welsh Quidditch team.

“I like catapults,” he invented, though it was also true; he had always found catapults quite interesting. When he was younger, he used to want to build one that could shoot a human out of it. His father had laughed and told him that, with magic, such things already existed. Sirius grinned at him. 

“Right on,” he replied, taking a breath to continue, but just then there was a commotion in the form of hundreds of owls flying into the Great Hall. Remus’ jaw dropped - he had never seen so many owls before. In fact, he had only seen a handful of owls in his life. James and Sirius both received something - so did Kevin Baas and the pudgy boy. Remus and Pimples were the only two first year Gryffindor boys to receive nothing. Remus didn’t mind, though. The less letters he got, the more special they would be. 

“Oh no…” he heard from beside him. Turning, he saw James looking at Sirius with sympathy. “Just get it over with. No point in waiting.” 

In front of Sirius sat a large red envelope that was smoking slightly, the edges starting to curl in on themselves. Sirius casually picked the letter up and ripped the seal open. Instantly, the envelope started screaming in a high-pitched, frantic voice. 

“SIRIUS BLACK!” it shouted. “HOW **DARE** YOU. GETTING SORTED INTO A HOUSE FILLED WITH BLOOD TRAITORS AND MUDBLOODS ALIKE! YOUR COUSINS WERE APPALLED TO HAVE EVEN _WITNESSED_ YOUR SORTING. YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED. IF YOU PUT SO MUCH AS ONE TOE OUT OF LINE, YOUR FATHER WILL DRAG YOU TO DURMSTRANG AND THAT WILL BE THE END OF IT!” With that, the envelope exploded into many pieces. Around the hall, mutters and whispers could be heard from all directions, though specifically from the direction of the Slytherin table. Sirius didn’t look fazed in the slightest. 

“Oi, someone pass the syrup,” he called to a group of third years, who gave him looks of mistrust and pity both, before a pretty blonde girl obliged his request. “Thanks,” he grinned. 

Remus felt slightly sick. Even though he didn’t know Sirius at all, he still thought that no one should be yelled at in such a way by their parents. After all, it wasn’t like Sirius had chosen his own house. Remus’ own parents, while very cautious, had always shown him love and support. A shadow appeared over Remus’ plate, and suddenly McGonagall’s voie was telling Remus that she had their timetables, shoving a piece of paper at each of them. Remus couldn’t help but smile - he couldn’t wait to start his classes. He almost wished he had been placed in Ravenclaw; he loved learning. Remus looked down at his schedule. 

**REMUS LUPIN WEEK ONE FIRST YEAR**

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

9 **:** 30 - 9:30 - 9:30 - 9:30 - 9:30 - 

Potions History of Magic Charms DADA Transfiguration

11 **:** 00 - 11:00 - 11:00 - 11:00 - 11:00 - 

Charms Herbology Transfiguration History of Magic Potions

12:40 - 12:40 - 12:40 - 12:40 - 12:40 -

Lunch Lunch Lunch Lunch Lunch

1:50 - 1:50 - 1:50 - 1:50 - 1:50 -

Transfiguration DADA Potions Herbology Charms

6:00 - 4:00 -

Dinner Flying

12:00 - 

Astronomy

Beside him, James was looking back and forth between their schedules. 

“Hey,” he said, “we have the exact same classes!” James sounded excited about that, which worried Remus. He wasn’t supposed to be making friends, right? His parents hadn’t outright told him not to make friends, but it was implied in some of their conversations. James snatched Sirius’ timetable from his hands, examining that one next. 

“You too!” he exclaimed, sounding overjoyed. Sirius, unlike Remus, looked thrilled at the news, giving James a huge grin and a fist bump. Sirius gave Remus a smile too before going back to drowning his pancakes in maple syrup. Remus checked his watch - it was already 9:10! Surprised by just how much time had passed, Remus stood up, said a hasty farewell, and rushed back up to his dorm to grab his potions book. He had no idea what to expect out of potions - he hoped it was an interesting class. Remus stopped in the Common Room, realizing he had no idea where to find the potions class, and looked around for a Prefect to ask for help. Remus spotted a boy with a silver badge pinned on his robes talking to another boy across the room.  
“Excuse me,” he said timidly, once he had arrived right behind the Prefect. “Could you tell me how to get to the potions class, please?” The boy looked over his shoulder at Remus, looking slightly annoyed, but told Remus where to go anyways. Remus thanked him and took off. 

Ten minutes later, he had finally arrived in the right dungeon. He was slightly unnerved by the greenish light that befell the classroom, but overall enjoyed how cool it was. The only problem was the smell. As a werewolf, Remus’ scent and hearing were both slightly heightened, and all the different ingredients and potions in the room were extremely overbearing. Their teacher, a walrus-looking man, was sitting at his desk, watching the students who made it on time. Looking around, Remus noticed that the class was shared between Gryffindors and Slytherins - he saw Lily and Severus ahead of him, whispering excitedly. He saw a few more people around him, but neither James nor Sirius were anywhere to be found, and it was already 9:30. As though the teacher had just read his mind, he stood up and closed the door to the room. 

“Ho-ho!” he boomed to the class, striding to the front so that everybody could see him. “I am Professor Slughorn, Potions Master here at Hogwarts,” he smiled genially, seeming to expect the class to be extremely impressed. Ahead of him, Remus could’ve sworn he heard Snape scoff. His theory was further proven when Lily giggled. Professor Slughorn walked to his desk, grabbed a scroll and started taking attendance. The first person to be absent was Sirius. James, of course, was also absent, so were two Slytherins and one Gryffindor girl, Mary MacDonald. 

“Not to worry,” Slughorn said, mustache twitching. “Every year there are a few students who get lost. It is a big castle,” Slughorn chuckled, and a few brown nosers laughed with him. Remus rolled his eyes. Suddenly, there was a loud knock on the door. Slughorn made a comment about how that was probably a latecomer, and went to open the door. Standing in front of it was Mary MacDonald _and_ the two Slytherins, all of them covered in something chunky and whitish-yellow. All three of them looked rather annoyed, though Mary looked slightly amused too.

“Merlin’s Beard!” Slughorn yelped. “What happened to the three of you?” Just then, James and Sirius strolled down the hallway towards the dungeons, both snickering. 

“You two!” one of the Slytherins yelled - Dustin Connors, Remus remembered. “You poured mashed potatoes on us!” he accused, and, _oh, that was what the white stuff was_ , Remus realized. Remus almost laughed - would have, if not for the teacher in the room. 

“Who - us?” James asked, eyes wide and innocent, and completely betrayed by the large smirk spreading across his face. Sirius placed a hand on his heart.  
“I think not, my friends. We’ve just been trying to find the dungeons!” Sirius’ innocent look, while better than James’, was ruined by the way he bounced around on the balls of his feet, looking incredibly pleased with himself. Slughorn sighed. 

“Well, boys, seeing as it’s the first day, I’ll let off the hook,” he said sternly. “But should this happen again, you’ll both be getting detention,” he warned. He flicked his wand three times, and the mashed potatoes disappeared from the victims’ bodies. James, Sirius, Mary, Dustin and the Slytherin girl whose name Remus had forgotten all walked into the class, taking different seats. James and Sirius took seats right next to each other a few desks behind Remus, whereas the other three spread out completely. Remus could already hear James and Sirius sniggering in the back. Ignoring them, Remus focused on Slughorn, who was back in front of the class, talking very loudly about previous years and all the potions they would be seeing this term. Remus diligently took notes while he spoke. However, Slughorn didn’t talk all that much about potions - mostly, he rambled on about himself - how talented he was at potions, his own humour, his students’ love for his classes. Really, he was a complete narcissist. Sirius and James didn’t help any. Throughout the class, they asked many questions that should have been ridiculous, but Slughorn took them seriously. 

“Sorry, sir, could you tell us your best traits?” Sirius asked, hiding a grin poorly. James nodded emphatically from beside him. This started Slughorn on a twenty minute speech about his own cunning resourcefulness - at one point, Remus was certain he was alluding to contraband, but Slughorn quickly brushed over that part of his stories. At long last, after an hour and a half, the lesson ended. Remus grabbed up his stuff and left, not wanting to listen to his teacher’s tales any longer. Remus’ next class, Charms, wasn’t until eleven. Deciding to get a head start, Remus headed back up to Gryffindor Tower to replace his potions textbook with his Charms one. Once inside his dormitory, Remus noticed he wasn’t alone. Pimples and Baas were both in there, talking to each other. Listening in, Remus gauged the conversation to be about the potions class - both Kevin and Pimples seemed to have found Slughorn as self-centered as Remus. Kevin abruptly turned towards Remus. 

“Hey, Lupin, right?” he asked. Remus nodded. “Well, I’m Kevin Baas and that’s Jeremy Murdock. You should see Murdock’s impression of Slughorn, it’s great!” Jeremy grinned, blushing slightly, and then did a rendition of Slughorn’s speech that was, as Baas had said, quite accurate. Remus laughed despite himself, shaking his head. 

“Maybe you should ask Dumbledore if you can be his replacement when he retires,” Remus suggested. “He doesn’t look too far off from it, anyways,” he added wryly. The boys both laughed, and so did someone behind him. Whipping around, Remus saw Peter Pettigrew standing in the doorframe, laughing quietly. Noticing his stare, Peter squeaked a little, before introducing himself in a weak voice. Remus told Peter his name in return, before he tucked his Charms book closer to his chest and left. Berating himself for getting a little friendly with even more people, Remus didn’t even look where he was going, which was probably why he didn’t notice Gid and Fabian approaching him.  
“Remus, slow down, mate,” Fabian laughed when Remus almost ran into him. “Where you off to in such a hurry, then?” 

“Charms,” Remus responded automatically, then had an idea. “Couldn’t tell me how to get there, could you?” Remus asked, thinking to himself about making a map to better understand the Castle’s layout. Gid and Fabian exchanged looks before telling Remus that they would walk him. This should’ve made Remus suspicious, seeing as the twins were quite the troublemakers, but he was too tired to care. The full moon was fast approaching. Following the Prewetts as they told Remus a story about Flitwick, the Charms teacher, that Remus wasn’t sure he believed, Remus didn’t really notice as Fabian took a right turn into a hallway that seemed completely abandoned. Then, the brothers stopped. 

“Er…” Remus started nervously, “I really don’t think this is the way to Charms class.” Fabian grinned at him.  
“Of course it is! It’s a faster and better way, anyways,” Gid assured him. Then, he strode forward and pulled back a tapestry of Uther the Unfortunate, revealing another tunnel that looked very unused. Remus walked towards it curiously.  
“Is that a secret passage?” he asked excitedly. While he was hoping for cool things like this, he hadn’t actually believed that Hogwarts would be such a compound for adventures! 

“Sure is!” Fabian announced. “Just follow it and you’ll come out of the Fifth floor. Walk right, take a left and there you go! Charms classroom. Saves you about five minutes.” 

“How’d you guys know about this?” Remus asked, powerless to stop his interest. Gid and Fabian both gave him mischievous smiles. 

“Ask us no question and we shall tell you no lies, young Remus,” Gid answered mysteriously. Fabian laughed and the two wandered away. Taking a deep breath, Remus followed the secret passageway. After maybe five minutes, Remus emerged. He went right, and then turned left when he got to a fork in the hall. Sure enough, just as the Prewetts had said, Remus found himself in front of a classroom door labeled Charms.Remus smiled to himself and then checked the time and - he was five minutes early! He grinned again and then knocked on the door. It swung inwards and Remus was faced with… and empty room? 

“What have we here?” Remus heard a squeaky voice _below_ him say. He peered downwards, and forced himself not to gape at the frankly tiny professor. “An early student!” Flitwick continued happily. Remus put on a polite smile. 

“Yes, sir,” he replied. 

“And who might you be?” 

“Remus Lupin.”  
When Remus reported his name, Flitwick looked at him closely for a moment. 

“Come in, then,” he said, and when Remus entered, the door closed behind him. 

“Now, Mr. Lupin. As Head of Ravenclaw house, I should tell you that I am aware of your... sickness, shall we say.” Remus started - he wondered if Flitwick was about to tell him that he hoped Remus would keep far away from him. He wouldn’t be surprised. “I just wanted to reassure you that any assignments I give out on days near the full moon don’t need to be handed in right away. If you ever need extra time, just let me know,” Flitwick said kindly. Remus’ jaw dropped open. _Never_ had he expected such kindness from someone who was aware of his lycanthropy. 

“Th-thank you, sir,” Remus stammered out. Then, he took a seat near the back of the class, right on time; there was a knock on the door not a few seconds later. In stumbled Lily Evans, the redhead. She was also early, though only by two minutes. She saw Remus and headed towards him, smiling brightly.  
“Hi!” she beamed. “I’m Lily, Lily Evans. You’re Remus Lupin, aren’t you?” Without waiting for an answer, she took the seat right next to Remus. “Potions seems interesting, doesn’t it? Although I’m not sure if Slughorn is the best teacher - did you hear how he rambled on about himself?” she giggled and Remus nodded with a clenched smile. “I’ve heard that Charms is neat, too - I’m Muggleborn, myself, but my friend Sev says that Charms are usually where we learn everyday types of magic! I can’t wait to start!” she gushed, and Remus couldn’t help but reply. 

“I reckon your friend’s right. My dad’s always told me that Charms are what he still uses everyday.” Lily nodded thoughtfully. 

“Kind of like math for Muggles - even though people don’t really realize it, we use numbers every day.”

“That’s true - English, too. I mean, we have to speak, don’t we?” Lily nodded emphatically. 

“And r-,” but was cut off by a whole group of students walking in. Apparently, they were sharing this class with Hufflepuffs - _five_ girls had just walked in, tittering loudly. They sat in a row of seats in the front, still laughing. Flitwick spared them only a glance before shrugging and returning to his papers. Lily watched them for a few seconds.  
“It’s crazy how quickly some people can make friends!” she pronounced. Remus nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly. 

“Like Sirius Black and James Potter,” he replied. Lily nodded, eyes wide. 

“Those are the two who dumped mashed potatoes on those three kids, right?” 

Remus told her that she was indeed correct. She leaned forward and whispered as if she was telling a secret: “Even though it was a little mean, I think it was pretty funny.” Remus chuckled a little bit and agreed. _Speak of the devils and they shall appear_ , he mused, because the two pranksters had just walked into the room. Remus was almost surprised that they weren’t late. The two of them took the desks a few places to the left of Remus and Lily. Lily peeked over at them, too, before turning back to Remus. 

“So how many Gryffindor boys are there, anyway?” 

“Six. James, Sirius, Kevin, Jeremy, Peter and me. How many girls?” 

“Seven. Mary, Marlene, Dorcas, Aella, Kimberly, Evelyn and me.”

By now, the class was pretty much full - apparently, the students had found it much easier to get to Charms than Potions. Flitwick cleared his throat - it sounded more like a squeal. 

“Baas, Kevin?” he called, starting attendance. In the end, it turned out that not a single student wasn’t present, a fact that pleased their professor immensely. Unlinke Slughorn, Flitwick didn’t waste their time with chronicles of his teaching years - instead, he jumped right into a lecture about the importance of hard work. He even gave studying tips, which Remus copied down. Though they didn’t do any magic the first day, Flitwick did make them take some notes on the different wand movements used in Charms, as well as some Latin roots that they would see often. By the end of the class, Lily and Remus were in agreement that Flitwick was much more competent than Slughorn. Lily even said that Charms might end up being her favourite class, even if they had only had two classes so far. Remus and Lily walked all the way to Gryffindor Tower together, Remus completely forgetting his mission of staying solitary for a few moments. Once they went to their separate dormitories, however, he shook his head, telling himself not to properly befriend her. He knew it was a bad idea. _It’s fine_ , he told himself. _She was just great company, you can’t blame yourself._ Putting his books away quickly, Remus left for the Great Hall, stomach rumbling. He sat by himself and ate quickly, intent on finding the library before lunch was over. Checking his watch, he decided he had forty minutes before he had to go back to his dorm to grab his Transfiguration book. He left the Great Hall, deciding against asking for directions - he wanted to find the library on his own. He would feel much more confident if he could find something on his own - without help. If he did enough exploring, he could probably gather enough information to create a map of the castle. Not just a simple map, but one that showed everything - the hundreds of staircases, even the moving ones, and, hopefully, a bunch of secret passages that he would try to find. After 2o minutes of mindless walking, he saw a group of older Ravenclaws ahead of him with books. Deciding to follow them in hopes that they were going to the library, Remus lengthened his stride to keep up with their longer legs. After another 5 minutes, and a good number of right turns, Remus found himself in front of two huge alder doors. The Ravenclaws had gone inside a half-minute ago, and Remus had caught a glimpse of _very_ many books. He pushed the doors open, and immediately sucked in a breath. It was enormous - shelves upon shelves filled with hundreds of thousands of books. Remus gazed around in wonder. His father had grossly undermined the sheer magnificence of the Hogwarts Library. Even with 7 whole years of schooling ahead of him, Remus didn’t think he’d be able to read even a tenth of all the books in there! Remus checked his watch and sighed. Knowing that he didn’t know how to get to Transfiguration, he approached the group of Ravenclaws that he had followed. 

“Sorry,” he said shyly. “Could you please tell me how to get to the Transfiguration class from here?” One of the girls, who had bright blue eyes and incredible silver hair, gave him an indulgent smile.  
“Of course, sweetie!” she cooed at him. She gave him clear instructions on how to get there and he set off. A whole eight minutes later, he stood in front of a plain-looking oak door engraved with Transfiguration. Remus was once again the first one there, and a few minutes early, so he knocked on the door, not wanting to stand around outside awkwardly. 

“Come in,” he heard McGonagall’s stern voice call. Remus pushed the door open and walked inside. “Mr Lupin,” McGonagall acknowledged. “You’re here a few minutes early,” she said. Like with Flitwick, Remus nodded and said “yes, Professor.” 

“Well, have a seat, then,” McGonagall waved him away. Remus took a seat near the front this time, wanting to pay attention to McGonagall’s lesson - she was a very imposing teacher, and Remus thought he would learn a lot in her class.  
“Why so early?” his teacher asked as she wrote her name and subject matter on a blackboard. Remus shrugged, even though McGonagall couldn’t see him. 

“It’s only a few minutes,” he insisted, “and besides, I’d rather be early than late.” McGonagall turned around with a tiny smile. 

“Very well said,” she praised. “One point to Gryffindor.” Remus furrowed his brow, confused.  
“Sorry, Professor, a point?” he asked.  
“Yes, Mr. Lupin. When students do well, they get awarded house points. When they break rules, house points are taken away. Whichever house has the most points at the end of the year wins the House Cup.” 

“Oh,” Remus replied. “But what if teachers are biased towards their own house?” McGonagall gave him a shrewd look. 

“I should hope that qualified teachers wouldn’t act so childish,” she said dryly. “Though I suppose,” she continued when Remus flushed, “that _some_ of our staff can be quite competitive. Especially in Quidditch - I do so love when Gryffindor wins.” A knock at the door interrupted their conversation.  
“Ah, come in,” McGonagall called, the same way she had with Remus. Kevin Baas walked in along with Jeremy Murdock and Aella Cress. Remus kept his head down every time another student entered the classroom, not wanting anyone to talk to him. 

“C-can I sit here?” a scared voice asked. Remus saw Peter Pettigrew looking panicky and flushed. Remus shrugged and nodded, and Peter’s face broke into a relieved smile. He took the seat and neither of them spoke. The second the clock at the front of the room changed to 1:51, McGonagall waved her wand, the door slamming shut. Unlike in Remus’ first two classes, no one dared speak. The other difference was the smaller amount of people - Remus realized that there were only Gryffindors in this class, and they were all present. McGonagall clearly realized the same thing, because she didn’t bother to take attendance. McGonagall wasted no time with pleasantries, jumping right into their lesson.  
“Transfiguration is one of the most difficult and most complicated branches of Magic. I expect that many of you will not continue to study with me after your OWLs. But that is neither here nor there. If you would please take out some ink, parchment and your quill…” the rest of the lesson was spent copying down complex notes that Remus barely understood. Thankfully, no one else in the class seemed to be faring much better. When Remus left the class an hour and a half later, his hand was cramped and he heard more than a few students grumbling about the gruelling methods of Professor McGonagall. Once the students were far enough away from the classroom, a few complaints got significantly louder. 

“That was ridiculous,” Jeremy complained. “That old bat is trying to work us into early graves.” 

“It’s like slave labour,” Kimberly Sewell agreed. Remus frowned - they were exaggerating. Yes, the class had been difficult, but not nearly as bad as Murdock and Sewell were saying. 

“Come off it,” Sirius snorted. “‘Slave labour’, yeah right. Let’s see you work in the kitchens for just one day, Sewell, then come and complain.” Kimberly went pink, glaring at Sirius. 

“Please,” she sneered back. “I suppose a Black _would_ know all about slave labour. Don’t you own a few?” Sirius’ face contorted in anger and he called Sewell a few words like “stupid and ditzy” before stalking off with James. Remus’ lips turned downwards. What did Kimberly mean? Sirius didn’t actually own slaves, did he? He seemed an okay bloke to Remus! Forcing the matter from his mind, Remus quickly dropped off his bag in his dorm then headed back to the library. He searched the shelves for a few minutes before finding what he was looking for; a beginner’s guide to Transfiguration book. Call Remus a suck up, but he quite wanted to learn about Transfiguration. The fact that it was extremely arduous only served as extra motivation for Remus. Opening the book, Remus flipped to the first chapter. 

A few hours later, Remus stretched, rubbing his eyes. He had only gotten through three chapters, having to reread different paragraphs quite a few times before even semi-understanding them. Now, though, Remus definitely felt as though he had made lots of progress. He understood the basic theory of Transfiguration, which, according to the author of this book, Jillian Grant, was the most important part to comprehend. It was like the base, the starting point. Remus checked his watch: 6:05. Remus jumped up, realizing he was famished, and headed over to the Great Hall for dinner, checking his book out on his way. He ate his dinner alone with his book, as it was supposed to be. All through the evening, Remus kept reading, talking to James and Sirius for a few minutes once, and, by the time he was ready for bed, he had finished two more chapters. Remus finally lay down in his four-poster, eyes closed, wondering what tomorrow would bring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I'm kinda considering stopping.  
> Should I continue this or no??


	4. Chapter 3

Remus was once again awoken at around eight o’clock. This morning, he could feel the moon starting to really pull at him. The full was in two days, and Remus was already starting to get anxious. He had never spent a moon anywhere other than in a locked cellar in the basement, heavily warded by his father. While he knew that Dumbledore was incredibly powerful, doubts still filled his mind. What if he broke out? What if he hurt someone? What if he hurt a  _ student _ ? Deciding that staying in bed and pondering what was to come would only make him go crazy with stress, Remus climbed out and headed to the bathroom to take a shower. As he walked through the dorm, he heard a quiet rustling coming from inside the bed that separated James’ bed from Remus’. Remus had been so absorbed in his reading the night before that he had completely forgotten to check which boy was sleeping where. Thankfully, Remus didn’t have to wonder much longer; the curtains opened, and Sirius Black stumbled out of bed, looking up at Remus blearily. 

“Oh- hello,” he beamed, but his eyes didn’t seem to match his smile. In fact, looking closer, Remus noticed that Sirius’ eyes looked rather red-rimmed and damp. Sirius cleared his throat and Remus realized that he had just been staring at Sirius for no apparent reason. Deciding against asking what was wrong, seeing as he shouldn’t form close bonds with anyone at school, Remus just gave him a small, ingenuine smile and walked to the bathroom with his clothes and toothbrush. Twenty minutes later, he emerged with his hair still wet.  _ When I go to the Library today, _ Remus mused to himself,  _ the first thing I’m going to do is find a spell that dries your hair.  _ Remus walked over to his bed again, trying to ignore the quiet sniffling he still heard from behind Sirius’ curtains. Remus kept reading his Transfiguration book for another half an hour or so before the other boys moving around became too distracting even for Remus. Nobody could possibly blame him though - James had decided to try setting his curtains on fire, and, unfortunately, he’d succeeded. He hadn’t even used magic; Sirius had given him a match that he’d ‘nicked from McGonagall’s office.’ Remus headed down to the Great Hall, looking forward to breakfast. Pushing the matter of the moon out of his head once again, Remus concentrated on his food. It was truly amazing. While Remus appreciated his parents and all they did for him, their cooking just couldn’t compare to Hogwarts’ meals. A few minutes later, Remus checked his schedule - he had History of Magic first. Remus was really excited for that class. For some reason, he had always thought that History of Magic would be the most interesting class. It would, after all, be sort of like reading normal stories - reading the adventures of people who lived thousands of years ago. Plus, the Prewett twins had told Remus that a ghost taught the class, which sounded incredibly cool. Another half hour later, however, Remus regretted the excitement. While he had been right about the history itself being interesting, the teacher was beyond awful. Professor Binns, who had been a teacher at Hogwarts since he was alive, was perhaps the most boring person Remus had ever met. He droned on and on, expressionless, in such a monotone that Remus copied his notes directly from the textbook instead of paying attention. At the end of class, Remus had basically just copied the first chapter of his History of Magic book onto a roll of parchment. Lily, who had sat beside Remus in class, had done the same thing as he, and, as they were leaving class, Remus found himself agreeing to meet her in the Common Room right before dinner to ‘properly talk about Allegrino the Adequate.’ Remus didn’t feel very worried about getting too close - after all, they were only studying, talking about school. Not their personal lives. So, Remus continued to his next class without many concerns. In Herbology, they were joined by Ravenclaws, which originally meant little to Remus. However, when a chipper voice greeted him from the seat right next to his, Remus started. 

“I hope this isn’t our only class together!” Malia was saying. Remus was a little surprised - though he and Malia had shared a brief few moments the day of the Sorting, he hadn’t thought that she would actively seek him out or even remember him. A little shell shocked, Remus could only nod. Fortunately, Professor Sprout spoke up a minute later, talking about the importance of plants in the Wizarding world, bringing a few out for demonstration. Remus very much hated the aconite. He didn’t know why but it almost felt like the plant was burning him just by looking at it. He got his answer a minute later - Sprout told them that aconite was also known as Wolfsbane. Her eyes lingered on Remus for a split second before she hastily put the herb away. Remus inwardly sighed.  _ Wonderful _ , he thought.  _ Another person who knows my secret.  _ Near the end of class, Sprout decided to give them ten minutes of free time, which was rewarded with cheers from most of her students, Remus  _ not _ included. Malia turned to Remus, eyes bright. 

“Isn’t this class super neat?” she asked excitedly. Determining that school was a safe topic, Remus responded equally enthusiastically. 

“Yeah! I really liked the look of those Alihosty leaves - you know, the ones that make you laugh uncontrollably?”    
“I know! I wonder when you would ever use those, though?”

“Maybe for a prank or something,” Remus suggested, his brain coming up with many ideas for practical jokes that could use such a plant. Him and Malia discussed the different plants that Sprout showed them for a little while before Malia told him about the plants that grew at her house.    
“It’s amazing,” she said. “We have all kinds of different flowers and trees! What kind of plants do you have?” Remus knew he couldn’t say the real answer, which was ‘we never stay long enough in one place to plant anything.’ Instead, he gave what he thought to be a generic response. 

“You know, same as you. Some flowers here and there, a vegetable garden.” 

“Wouldn’t it be so cool to have magical plants? I’m Muggleborn, see, and I was hoping I could find some nice magical flowers to bring home for my mother - I don’t know, maybe some signing lilacs or something?” 

“Ask Professor Sprout, I’m sure she’d know.” Professor Sprout signaled the end of class a few seconds later, so Malia, taking Remus’ advice, stayed behind to ask her about flowers in the Wizarding world. Though Remus’ dad had magic, Remus knew almost nothing about plants - his parents had homeschooled him a little bit, yes, but specifically in Defense Against the Dark Arts. Remus made his way to the Great Hall alone for lunch, still thinking about DADA. From what Remus knew (thanks to the Prewetts), there was a new Defense teacher every year. Apparently, the job was cursed. This year, Dumbledore had introduced Professor Attson as their teacher, a tall, dark-haired man with incredibly bushy eyebrows. As Remus ate, he wondered whether he would already know some of the material they would learn. He hoped so. Even though Remus liked learning, he also really liked impressing people. 

Once lunch was over, Remus headed to Defense Against the Dark Arts, getting there a few minutes early, as he’d planned. Once he got there, he saw James and Sirius loitering outside the door, whispering to each other. Remus was slightly suspicious. Even if he didn’t know the two boys very well at all, they  _ had _ dumped mashed potatoes on someone. Anyone would be a little apprehensive to see them muttering to each other. Before Remus could properly worry about it, however, Sirius noticed him approaching a nudged James to signal him to stop talking.    
“Hey, Lupin!” James trilled. “Why’re you here early?” 

“Why’re you?”    
Sirius chuckled. “He got you there, mate,” he said. Turning to Remus, he added, “Defense seemed like the coolest class. We didn’t wanna miss anything.”

“Right,” Remus said, not completely believing them.    
“That, and we wanted to check if there were wards on the door,” James continued. Sirius elbowed him and Remus let out a small laugh.    
“Well, did you check?” he asked, curious. They shook their heads. 

“We don’t really know how,” Sirius admitted. Remus smiled, happy that years of eavesdropping on his parents’ conversations were about to pay off. 

“Just chuck something at the door. A quill, a shoe, anything. I dunno, usually works.” 

Sirius and James obeyed him, throwing something small, brown and extremely bad-smelling at the classroom door. It bounced off an invisible barrier and exploded on the ground. Remus covered his nose at the onslaught of shit-smelling gas that filled the air. 

“Fuck!” he exclaimed. “What the hell was  _ that _ ?!” Remus, who had grown up around his dad’s bad language, didn’t even think anything of his cursing. How was he to know that eleven year olds don’t usually say words like that? Sirius and James, however, gaped at him, though Remus didn’t know why. Sirius regained his composure first.    
“Er… a dungbomb. You’ve never seen a dungbong?” 

Remus shook his head mutely. The name was pretty self-explanatory and Remus regretted never having known about them. He could’ve used them as entertainment all these years! Shrugging off his disappointment, Remus gave Sirius and James another half smile before taking a seat across from the classroom door and pulling out his Transfiguration book. 

“Oi, wait!” James said. Remus glanced back up. “How’d you know how to check for wards?”    
“Oh- er, y’know… eavesdropping,” Remus answered sheepishly. Sirius and James grinned at him. 

“Brilliant trick, that,” said Sirius, sounding impressed. 

Just then, the classroom door opened, and Professor Attson looked from the boys to the dungbombs a few times before sighing resignedly. Despite James and Sirius’ efforts to convince the teacher of their innocence, Attson removed three points from Gryffindor, one point for each boy. Grumbling, Sirius and James trudged inside the classroom to wait for the rest of the students. Remus watched them go, and, once they had picked to chairs near the back, walked over to a desk that was a safe distance from the two. While he wished that he could sit next to them and ask about other gadgets they knew about, a voice in his head kept reminding him that he was  _ not _ like them - he wasn’t an innocent boy playing harmless tricks. He was a monster, and he really needed to make sure he remembered that. Remus shook off his own thoughts, pulled his book closer to him and read quietly. When the class started, he took notes instead of reading and, when class ended, he quietly left the room, alone. He walked back up to his dorm, deposited his stuff and then went down to the Common Room to read his Transfiguration book. He only had a few chapters left. Folding himself into a chair far away from the middle of the room, Remus quickly lost himself in his reading. 

_ Elementary Transfiguration is, at first, quite difficult. One of the most common errors beginners make is to wave their wand the--  _

Remus looked up at the sound of a throat clearing. In front of him stood Lily, smiling. 

“Hey Remus!” Remus stared at her blankly for a moment until his brain computed. 

“Oh- oh! Hey Lily!” he gave her a tiny smile. 

“There’s only an hour or so until dinner. So, if you still wanted to, of course, we could do some history.” Lily suddenly looked pretty nervous. So nervous, in fact, that Remus ignored his conscience telling him to decline, to avoid other people. Instead, he gave her another small grin and a nod. Looking relieved, Lily pulled over a chair and her history book. Remus closed his own book and sat up straighter. They both leaned over Lily’s history book, skimming the first chapter again. When they were both done, they easily sat back and talked about what they’d read. Incredibly, they had similar opinions - Allegrino didn’t deserve the title of adequate, and that, in the end, he hadn’t really corrected his wrongs. Before Remus knew it, they were heading down to the Great Hall for dinner, now discussing Professor Binns. 

“Oh, I hope he assigns us partners! I heard that that’s what Slughorn does - he pairs two students up for the whole year. Hey!” Lily exclaimed suddenly, turning towards Remus so she was half walking in front of him. “If we get to pick our History partners, would you want to be mine?” For half a second, Remus was conflicted. Though he knew he shouldn’t make friends in case they found out about his lycanthropy, he told himself that it was just studying. There was nothing revealing about discussing old Wizards, after all. 

“Sure!” Remus beamed. Lily smiled back and they kept walking. Once they got to the Great Hall, Lily gave him a wave and a happy goodbye before walking over to the middle of the room, where she and the Slytherin boy, Snape, greeted each other with a strange combination of hand movements. Turning away, feeling a pang of loneliness, Remus ate his supper quickly before hurrying off to finish his book. That night was one filled with misery for Remus. Even though he knew he couldn’t, he still wished to have friends. He went to bed early, shutting his curtains tight. 

Wednesday passed pretty smoothly. In Charms, Flitwick was starting them on the basics. He even promised that next class, they would actually use their wands. Remus was very much looking forward to that. 

In Transfiguration, they took more complex notes, though Remus understood them much better now that he’d read most of his Beginner’s Guide to Transfiguration. McGonagall even gave him a smile and awarded him five points when he was the only student in their class to know the answer to a particularly hard question. He left that class grinning. 

At lunch, Remus managed to finish his Transfiguration book. While there were a few concepts he still didn’t quite understand, his overall knowledge had much improved. Vowing to go to the Library to get a new book as soon as classes were over, Remus headed over to Potions. As Lily had predicted, Slughorn assigned them partners. In the beginning, he had been willing to let them pick their own partners, but after seeing the matching grins on James and Sirius’ faces, he decided to pick at random. Some students got lucky - like Lily, who was miraculously paired with Snape - while others, like Sirius, grouched. Remus himself was with fellow Gryffindor, Aella Cress. She seemed like a nice enough girl, though snobbish. Slughorn let them try making a Plant-growth potion. Some of the ingredients really irritated Remus’ nose, but he said nothing about it, not wanting to draw attention to himself. In the end, Aella and Remus’ potion turned out averagely - they had messed up in some places, but, overall, the potion would still be usable. Lily and Snape’s potion, as Slughorn happily pointed out, was near perfection. Sirius and his partner, Dustin Connors, had gotten into a fight and their potion had ended up all over each other. James, of course, had joined the fight and was also covered in the potion. The three of them were each given a detention. Sirius looked pale at the mention of detention, and Remus could imagine why - the howler his mother had sent had clearly said that he was supposed to behave perfectly. Black said nothing though, tilting his chin up and swaggering out the door when class ended. Remus admired his courage. As he’d promised himself, Remus headed right over to the Library. Though he had enjoyed his Transfiguration book, he wanted to broaden his horizons. So, instead of checking out another book on Transfiguration, Remus grabbed a book on charms, also for ‘new learners.’ Remus walked to the edge of the library and sat in an armchair, feeling very weary. The moon was very nearly full - tomorrow night, Remus would transform into an emotionless monster. Physically shaking himself to get rid of those thoughts, Remus opened his book, determined  _ not _ to think for a while. The Charms textbook was a little easier than Transfiguration, at least to Remus. Charms seemed to require more of a natural flow whereas Transfiguration was all about calculated flicks and words. After an hour or two of reading, Remus, who had long since developed a crick in his neck, stood up, stretched and went up to Gryffindor tower. There was still another two hours until Dinner and Remus had no idea what to do. While he liked the Charms book well enough, it wasn’t enough to keep him entertained for long hours at a time. At home, though he had no friends, there were many things he could do; he could run outside, could play with his mother, could play with his figurines. At home, even though there were only three people, he could at least talk to either his parents or sometimes himself. Here, despite the hundreds of kids around, he had no one he could speak with. Distracting himself from his depressing thoughts, Remus suddenly got an idea. At home, he liked to run around outside. Well, he had been told that Hogwarts had quite impressively vast grounds. What was stopping him from exploring them? Smiling a little to himself, Remus quickly ditched his stuff and found a way to get outside. He couldn’t find the main exit, but he did find a small, very old-looking door that led to a nice stone path amidst tall wild flowers. Remus grinned wider and skipped along the path. It was very peaceful, walking along by himself, surrounded by nature. If he looked straight ahead, blocking the castle from view, he could pretend he was in the middle of an adventure, all alone, trying to save the world. He had read things like that in Muggle books that his mother liked. So, he walked along the path, looking around at the flowers. Some he was pretty sure were Muggle - there were bright yellow sunflowers swaying slightly in the breeze. Others were most certainly magical. There was one shimmering pink bush that was dancing! Remus was in awe, looking around. It was like his very own secret garden. After another five minutes or so of following the path, Remus found himself standing in grass. He seemed to be hidden from view by a cluster of trees. Walking through the gaps, he emerged into a huge plain. It seemed almost never-ending. There were trees, grass, flowers, gardens, benches, swing sets, picnic tables and even the Great Lake didn’t take up too much space. Surrounding the plain was a huge forest, trees growing unnaturally tall. In the east, on the edge of the forest, there was a wooden hut. Remus took everything in, lips parted in happiness. He couldn’t wait to explore the grounds. Perhaps not more than the castle itself, but he figured he would have plenty of time to explore them both. Remus saw other students roaming the grounds, many of them resting in front of the Great Lake. Remus looked around him, noticing that there weren’t too many first years outside. Happy that he didn’t have to worry about anybody recognizing him, Remus wasted no time in briskly walking forward towards the hut. He could see the rest when there weren’t so many students loitering. Once he got there, he simply looked at it, not sure if it was inhabited or not. In fact, now that he was right in front of it, he wasn’t quite sure what to do. Should he see if the door was locked? Should he just sit on the steps? Or should he walk away? For a few seconds, he debated with himself internally, but his curiosity eventually won out - he really wanted to know what was in the hut. So, gathering his courage, he walked up the frankly enormous steps and knocked on the door. Holding his breath, Remus listened for a few seconds - from inside, he could hear some scuffling sounds and a strange huffing noise. Then, just as he was leaning closer to better hear, the door was flung open and Remus fell back a little in surprise. When he regained his balance, he looked up… and up. It was Hagrid, the gigantic man who had led the first years up to the castle. Hagrid was staring back at him, looking confused. 

“Oh, er- hello,” Hagrid waved cheerfully. Remus blinked, still slightly dazed. 

“Erm,” he managed. “Hi,” he said. “Sorry, I didn’t know if anybody lived here, and I was really curious, so I’ll just be going now., if you’d like” Remus knew he was babbling. Hagrid was now looking at him in faint amusement. He even chuckled a little. 

“I’s fine,” he replied, waving one hug hand. Remus ducked to avoid getting his nose broken. Now  _ that _ would be a problem - being a werewolf meant that all injuries that weren’t dark magic didn’t really affect him. He usually healed within minutes. Only his self-inflicted wounds remained as scars. “Would yeh like ter come in for a cup o’ tea?” Hagrid asked. Remus looked up at him, conflicted. Finally, he threw caution to the wind and nodded. He was pretty thirsty and was almost positive that one cup of tea wasn’t enough time for Hagrid to even suspect anything was different about Remus. So, he followed Hagrid into the house, looking around. He quite liked the design - it was simple and very homey. Remus felt himself relax a little bit. Hagrid walked to a section that Remus could only call a kitchen and turned a kettle on. Remus offered to help, but Hagrid told him to just take a seat. Thankfully, there was only one table, so Remus didn’t have to ask any more questions. The table and the chairs were quite big, so big that Remus’ feet didn’t even touch the ground once he was sitting. As he continued to observe, he heard the huffing noise again, coming from the corner of the room. That’s when he noticed the huge black dog that was eyeing Remus curiously. Remus froze - usually, animals hated him, and barked or hissed as soon as they even saw him. This one, however, just seemed slightly weary. Remus dared not even breathe. Apparently, Hagrid noticed.    
“Yeh’re not afraid of dogs, are yeh?” 

“No, no… they just don’t usually like me,” Remus said truthfully. Hagrid gave him an understanding smile. 

“Me either,” he said. “Fang there is a boarhound, and a friendly one at tha’. All bark an’ no bite.” Remus grinned. He actually really liked dogs; they just didn’t reciprocate. Hagrid seemed to pick up on Remus’ happiness because he whistled and Fang came over, tongue lolling.    
“Hey, boy,” Remus cooed, petting the dog’s massive snout. Hagrid stood up and returned a few seconds later with two steaming mugs of tea. He asked Remus if he wanted cream or sugar, who declined. Hagrid then offered him some rock cakes, which he’d made himself. Hungry, Remus accepted one of them. He regretted it a few seconds later, however, when he bit into it and nearly chipped his tooth. He smiled politely, however, and finished the cake without complaint. Hagrid asked him some questions about his studies, and he answered enthusiastically. Before Remus knew it, he heard the sound that signalled dinner. 

“Oh, shite!” he exclaimed. “I was supposed to finish another chapter before dinner.” Hagrid raised his eyebrows at him, looking slightly surprised. Remus immediately went self conscious. What had he done? Hagrid, who was surprisingly intuitive, gave him a reassuring smile.    
“I’m jus’ surprised yeh swore in front of me,” he explained. Remus went red. Was swearing unacceptable at Hogwarts? He had always just thought cursing was normal! 

“Oh, er… sorry,” he said sheepishly. He supposed that was why Sirius and James had been so surprised by his outburst. Hagrid assured him that it was fine, he could’ve said worse, before Remus departed, stomach growling. He had refused another rock cake, claiming that he didn’t want to spoil his dinner. Once he arrived at the Great Hall, he took a seat relatively far from anyone else. He piled his plate with potatoes, biscuits and turkey, looking forward to eating. After only a few bites, however, McGonagall was next to him, requesting he follow her. He obliged, dreading what awaited him. Knowing the full moon was tomorrow, Remus was almost certain McGonagall would want to talk to him about it again. This time, instead of heading to McGonagall’s office, Remus found himself following his teacher into a door labeled ‘Hospital Wing’. Remus paled - what were they doing in a hospital wing? Were they going to perform tests? He had once read that in the seventeenth century, wizards had cut werewolves open in various labs to try and discover what made them capable of healing their injuries. Once Lahey had been elected in 1703, however, the experiments were put to a stop and made illegal. Despite knowing that McGonagall probably wouldn’t hurt him, and almost certainly wouldn’t break such an important law, a spike of fear still travelled through him. He took a deep breath to calm himself. McGonagall whipped her head towards him at the sound, and her nostrils flared when she noticed his panicked state. She abruptly stopped walking and turned towards Remus. 

“Mr. Lupin,” she started firmly, but not unkindly. “I am your teacher - I am here to help you in every way that I can; not to hurt you. So, please - don’t look like a criminal being brought to the chopping block.” Remus stared at the older witch in shock. He just couldn’t understand why she was so adamant that he feel secure or why she would even want to help him. Did she not get it? He was an abomination, a savage, evil beast. He averted his gaze, not wanting to contradict her, and nodded. She surveyed him for another moment before walking a few more steps and stopping in front of a door. After a few raps on the door, another witch opened it, looking much younger than McGonagall. She looked puzzled. 

“Minerva?” she asked. “What seems to be the problem?” McGonagall put her hand on Remus’ shoulder before responding. 

“Poppy, this is Remus Lupin. Mr. Lupin, this is Madame Pomfrey - she’s our mediwitch. She will be helping you after your transformations - heal you as best she can.”    
Remus felt his stomach drop. He didn’t know this woman. He couldn’t subject her to the sight of his mangled, horrifying body after a transformation. And, what if she was disgusted by the sight of him and called the Ministry. His parents had made it quite clear that he was to trust no one, even adults. 

“Er… I-I…” Remus stammered. Both women looked at him in mild concern. He forced himself to breath for a second. “Really, I… I can manage on my own. Please, you needn’t bother yourself, I’ll be just fine, the wounds heal themselves eventually.” 

Madame Pomfrey tutted. 

“Now, dear, don’t be ridiculous. Of course I wouldn’t leave a child alone after such an awful night.” Remus looked desperately at McGonagall. 

“Professor, please,” he begged. “I’m really fine on my own, my parents sometimes aren’t home after…” he trailed off upon seeing the looks of horror on the faces of the two witches. 

“No, Mr. Lupin,” McGonagall said, in a tone that left no room for argument. Remus felt a spark of stubbornness go through him, however, and he took a breath to defend his point. McGonagall beat him to it, though. “It isn’t a question, Mr. Lupin.” This time, Remus slumped; he would try again next month. After Madame Pomfrey explained to him that she would come about an hour after sunrise, just to make sure that he was well and truly human again. Remus tried once more to convince them that he would be fine on his own, but neither lady wanted to hear it. So, a half hour later, Remus was dejectedly walking back into his dorm. Baas waved at him when he came in, and so Remus nodded back before quickly looking away. This was a mistake, however, as his eyes met the curious stares of Sirius Black and James Potter. Sirius opened his mouth and Remus ducked his head, trying to avoid being asked any questions. No such luck, unfortunately. 

“Oi, Lupin!” it was indeed Black. “What’d McGonagall want?” Remus looked up and saw that the whole dorm was now looking at him. He went red and started panicking a little at all the attention. Thankfully, he had always been quick on his feet. 

“Nothing, really,” he lied. “She wanted to know how I found the class so far. See if she needed to explain anything again or give more homework.” This was thankfully the right thing to say, as Murdock quickly started complaining about the ‘already oversized amount of homework’ that McGonagall gave them. Remus breathed an inaudible sigh of relief. He quickly walked over to his own bed and pulled out his book. He read for a while before he started thinking about the upcoming moon. He pondered and worried, eventually falling asleep long after the last boys (James and Sirius) had closed their curtains, dreading the next night. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have panic! at the disco stuck in my head :))  
> also should i put less details in here? i feel like the story is so long already :\


	5. Chapter 4

Remus woke up already feeling restless. He couldn’t lie in his bed for more than a few seconds before he had to get up and move around, his skin crawling. Although the moon always affected him in such a way, today seemed to be even worse than usual. Remus attributed the worsening to his increased stress level. He checked his watch and groaned; it was six thirty in the morning and there was no way in hell he would be able to get back to sleep. Knowing that moping wouldn't do him any good, Remus quietly changed into his robes, deciding that, since he had a few hours to kill, he might as well go explore the castle a little bit. As silently as he could, Remus opened his hangings and slipped out of the dorm. Thankfully, it seemed as though none of the other boys were awake yet. 

Once in the common room, Remus paused. No one was down there yet, which was good, because Remus wanted to get a better feel for the place. He sat in a few of the chairs and couches, looked around at all the different tables and table games before he spotted something he wished he had seen his first day there. In a very dark, very shadowed corner of the common room was an almost invisible black armchair. When the room was at its full Gryffindor glory, with students everywhere, there was no chance anyone would notice the secluded area. Remus grinned to himself - now, he could read down here and avoid talking to anyone in the dorm! His smile faltered a tiny bit, and he felt just a little bit saddened. So far, he had really enjoyed talking to some of the other kids, however brief their conversations were. Sirius and James were hilarious, Lily was incredibly smart and even the Prewett brothers had been great company. Remus’ thoughts were interrupted when two tired-looking older students came down to the common room. Before they even spotted him, Remus was leaving the common room. Outside, he thought for a moment, unsure of what to do. There was still an hour until breakfast, which was unfortunate - Remus was starving. Unsurprising, seeing as it was a full moon - he almost always ate triple the amount he normally would on the days of the full. He supposed full moons took a lot more energy out of him, especially when he transformed and started clawing himse- 

“Are you quite alright, dear?” 

Remus jumped in shock. He looked around, but saw no one. Confused, Remus shook his head to clear it. Maybe he was going crazy. 

“Over here,” the disembodied, high-pitched female voice said, from somewhere behind him. Wheeling around, Remus noticed what he probably should have noticed days ago - the lady in the portrait was talking! Remus suddenly realized that she had been there the whole time, moving and smiling. He had never expected that she would be able to talk to him, though. Was she a real person, stuck in there? The thought filled Remus with sympathy. 

“Er- hi,” he said shyly. The lady smiled at him. “I-I’m Remus?” he added, not quite sure whether he should introduce himself or not. The lady just kept beaming. 

“Oh, you’re simply  _ precious _ ,” she simpered. Precious? He was eleven! Seven year olds were precious! He almost frowned, but didn’t want to appear rude. Instead, he asked her what her name was. At that, her eyes went wide. She looked at him with pure joy in her eyes. 

“You know,” she said, “in the hundreds of years I’ve been hanging here, I can count on one hand the number of students who have asked me that. Most people just call me the Fat Lady.” 

“Hundreds?!” Remus exclaimed, shocked. “But… you don’t look older than thirty!” The lady gave him a grin. 

“Magic, dear,” she explained. “My name is Agnes.” 

“Nice to meet you,” Remus said politely. Her smile, if possible, widened. 

“You as well,” she replied, sounding genuine. 

“Sorry,” Remus said, getting a sudden idea, “but could you tell me if it’s possible to get food outside of mealtimes? It’s just, breakfast isn’t for a few hours, and I’m really quite hungry, so if you wouldn’t mind…” he trailed off when Agnes laughed. 

“Of course! It’s really quite silly, actually, but there is a way to get into the kitchens,” the fat lady proceeded to tell Remus where the kitchens were, and how he needed to do the strangest thing to get inside - tickle the pear that was in the portrait. Remus thanked her and left, heading down a set of stairs right below the Great Hall as he’d been instructed. Once he got there, he looked apprehensively at the large picture of a bowl of fruit, before cautiously reaching forward with one arm and running the tips of his fingers over the pear. To his surprise, a laughing sound came from the picture and it swung forward, revealing a huge, delicious-smelling room with dozens of little… creatures. Remus wasn’t quite sure what they were, and he felt himself go red as every pair of huge eyes landed on him. Then, about twenty of the little creatures were by his side, beaming and ushering him in. Their voices were incredibly squeaky, and they were shoving food into his arms. Soon, he could barely hold all the treats that he was being given. He piped up, then. 

“Sorry,” he said timidly, “but is there a table where I could maybe…” he didn’t even get to finish his sentence before creatures were leading him to a round, wooden table. He deposited all his food and took a seat. Then, he turned towards the creatures. One of them, who appeared to be the leader, stepped forward, bowing. 

“Hello, sir!” he squeaked. “It is an honor to serve you. I’m Barry, sir. Barry the house elf.” 

_ Oh _ , Remus thought. His father often wished that he could have a house elf, but they were ridiculously hard to come by and only the richest Pureblood families had them. Remus had had no idea that so many worked at Hogwarts! 

“Er- thank you,” he said to the elf, who beamed and bowed once again. “You don’t need to bow,” Remus said, embarrassed. The elf just nodded and affirmed that he would cease, if it was what Remus wished. 

Remus didn’t really know what to do with all the elves that were still watching him. So, feeling a little self-conscious, Remus looked at the food in front of him. There was quite a bit - pastries and cakes, fruits and vegetables, eggs and bacon, even some beef wellington! Suddenly ravenous, Remus took a bite of an apple. The elves asked him if he needed anything else, and when he politely refused, they went back to work, cooking what Remus assumed would be the meals for the day. Thinking about it now, it seemed obvious that house elves were the reason that the whole of Hogwarts’ population could eat every day. After all, there were hundreds of students; no regular human could make such quality food for so many people in such a short amount of time. Remus polished off his apple and looked back at his pile of goodies once again. He noticed a bar of chocolate and his face split into a huge smile. He absolutely  _ loved  _ chocolate. Often, during the aftermath of his transformations, Remus found that nothing, not even his father’s stories, could cheer him up as much as chocolate. It wasn’t just the taste, either; to Remus, liking chocolate proved that he wasn’t a complete animal. Dogs, including wolves, couldn’t eat chocolate without getting sick - so, since Remus could (and did) eat chocolate without repercussions, he couldn’t possibly be 100% wolf. Skewed logic as it was, it often made Remus feel better about himself. Now, he eagerly unwrapped the bar of pure milk chocolate. Milk wasn’t his number one top choice, but he still absolutely loved it. In fact, Remus doubted there was any chocolate he  _ didn’t  _ love. Remus finished the whole bar, then some bacon and eggs before he, once again, felt too confined. How he would sit through hours of classes, he didn’t know. He thanked the elves profusely, and they insisted that it was no trouble and that he should come back whenever he wanted, preferably often. Remus felt less self-conscious around the elves. Maybe because they were also technically ‘creatures’, like Remus himself. Or maybe it was just because he didn’t think they’d take the time away from their chores to bother finding out about his secret. Whatever the reason, Remus was positive that he would be spending quite some time in the kitchens during his years at Hogwarts. He checked his watch and saw that it now read 8:15. Remus grinned - Breakfast had started forty-five minutes ago. And, thanks to his sped up metabolism, he was still a little hungry. Before he went to the Great Hall though, he had to get a book. He wanted to minimize the chances of a fellow student coming over to talk to him during lunch.  _ Not that anyone would want to, _ Remus thought bitterly.  _ Who would want to hang out with the weird brainiac kid?  _ Forcing himself to ignore his own dark thoughts, Remus started the journey to his dorm to retrieve his Charms book. He was getting close to the end, now, and could already notice his improvement; there were a few spells in the book that he couldn’t do at first, but performed with no difficulty now. He was surprised with his own progress - as far as he knew, he was the only First Year to know any spells. Remus smiled to himself and took out his wand. He pointed it at a particularly dusty portrait and cried: “Tergeo!” Immediately, most of the dust and grime was siphoned off of the painting and disappeared into the air with an audible  _ pop! _ Remus grinned even wider. The elderly man in the portrait he had just cleaned beamed and bowed, thanking Remus profusely. Blushing, Remus hurried along the corridor and up to Gryffindor Tower. When he walked into the Boys Dorms, it was blissfully empty. Remus sighed happily and grabbed his book from his bed, before entering the washroom to take a shower. He stopped dead once he saw himself in the mirror, though. Although the full moons treated him poorly at home, it was nothing compared to at Hogwarts. His under eyes were so dark, they looked bruised, his skin so pale, it looked white and his posture so slumped, he appeared to have a hunchback. Remus groaned and fretted, wondering how on Earth he would be able to conceal his secret if he looked like a dead man walking once a month. He dwelled for a few minutes before coming to an unpleasant conclusion. He checked his watch - it was now just past eight-thirty. There was still an hour until classes, so Remus set about putting his plan into action. He went down to the Common Room, looking for an older student to tell him how to get to McGonagall’s office.  _ For God’s sake, I really need a map of this castle.  _ Remus looked around the room for someone who looked patient and sweet. Finally, he saw a girl who only looked a year older than him, writing something on a piece of parchment. He approached her nervously, tapping her on the shoulder. She turned towards him with a smile. She was quite a pretty girl, with a heart-shaped face and black hair. 

“Er… sorry, b-but could you please tell me how to get to Professor McGonagall’s office?” Remus asked. 

“Of course!” the girl answered, putting her parchment down. Remus could see now that it was a drawing of a flower. 

“That’s amazing,” Remus blurted, because, well, it was. 

“Thanks,” the girl grinned. “I’m Alice, by the way. Alice Fortescue.” 

“Remus Lupin.” 

Alice told Remus to follow her, and she led him down many corridors. The trip looked familiar, seeing as he had been to McGonagall’s office a few days prior. They took a left and Remus recognized the door at the end of the hall. 

“Thanks!” he exclaimed. Alice smiled at him, but her eyes roamed over his face, looking slightly concerned. 

“Anytime,” she said at last. With that, Remus walked forward and knocked on McGonagall’s door. 

“Enter!” Remus heard. So, he twisted the handle and cautiously walked into the room. “Remus,” McGonagall acknowledged, when she saw him, her face remaining neutral, revealing nothing, for which Remus was grateful. 

“Hello, Professor,” he said shyly. 

“What can I do for you?” 

Remus took a breath. “Well, Professor, I was hoping you could help me with something…” 

McGonagall raised an inquiring eyebrow. Remus looked at his feet. 

“Is there a spell that would make me look normal?” he mumbled almost inaudibly. After a few seconds of silence, Remus looked up, wondering if McGonagall had left. She was staring at him though, looking contemplative. 

“There are… temporary spells that could remove under-eye circles. As for the rest, I’m sorry, but I can’t think of anything.” 

“I’ll take anything I can get,” Remus pleaded. 

“Very well,” McGonagall said. She stood up and pointed her wand at Remus. “Extindium!” she shouted. 

Remus felt something like cold air blow over his face. 

“Did it work?” he asked anxiously, forgetting his timidity. McGonagall smiled. 

“Yes. You’re still looking pale and slumped, but you could just blame it on tiredness.” 

Remus nodded, reverting back to shyness. 

“Thank you,” he said quietly. He left the classroom and once again started the walk back to his dorm, this time paying attention to all the turns he took. When he got back to his room, three boys were in it. James and Sirius were sitting atop James’ bed, talking in furtive tones, while Peter was sitting in front of the window, watching them enviously. Once the door swung shut behind Remus, all three pairs of eyes turned to him. Peter smiled, James nodded, but Sirius frowned. 

“Hey, Lupin,” James said. 

“You okay, mate?” Sirius asked casually. If possible, Remus paled even more. 

“Mm, just tired. Didn’t sleep a wink,” he replied, faking a yawn. This seemed to satisfy Sirius, for he went back to whispering to James. Remus couldn’t help getting a little jealous. The two boys seemed as though they had been best friends for years, instead of just having met days earlier. Pushing fantasies of befriending the two troublemakers, Remus walked over to his bed, which unfortunately happened to be very close to the window. 

“H-hi,” Peter stammered to him. Feeling lonely, Remus smiled back. 

“Hey,” he said. “I’m Remus.”

“I know,” Peter replied awkwardly. “I’m Peter.” 

“Nice to meet you, Peter. Whaddya think about Hogwarts?” 

“It’s amazing! I’m a half-blood, you know, and I didn’t even know about magic until I was ten! After I showed my first signs of wandless magic, my parents were thrilled! Course, then my Hogwarts letter came, and they were just stunned! They didn’t think I was good enough for this school, see. What about you?” 

Blinking from the onslaught of information, Remus couldn’t answer for a second. 

“Er…” he started. “I quite like the Library,” he answered sheepishly. Peter laughed. 

“Yeah? So what’s your favourite class been?” And just like that, Remus found himself engaged in a conversation with another student. After a half hour or so, though, the bell rang, reminding Remus and Peter that they had class to attend. Remus scrambled for his Defence Against the Dark Arts book, telling Peter not to wait for him. When he emerged from his trunk, he came face to face with James and Sirius. 

“Er… hullo,” he said suspiciously. 

“Remus Lupin,” declared Sirius, “you are officially invited to walk to class with us.” 

Remus stared dumbly for a moment before bursting into laughter. James and Sirius glanced at each other, confused. 

“Crickey, you blokes certainly don’t think lowly of yourselves!” Remus exclaimed. “Right, well, if we don’t want to be late, we’d better go,” he added. Sirius and James trailed right behind him as he made his way to DADA, trying hard to remember the way to get there. Finally, they arrived, with only seconds to spare. Attson took attendance, and there were once again no absences. The class passed uncomfortably for Remus. His skin itched and he was in constant fear that his dark circles had reappeared. James and Sirius didn’t help - on days of the full moon, his already above-average senses sharpened that much more, and he was sensitive to noise; and those two boys made  _ lots _ of noise. Finally, the class ended. His next class was slightly better. As Lily had predicted, Binns separated them into teams of two to study and work. As promised, Lily and Remus paired together. The class would’ve been enjoyable were it not for his irritation. Thankfully, Lily didn’t seem to notice anything amiss, and discussed the History lesson with enthusiasm. Remus tried to ignore his pain and pay attention, and thought he had succeeded very well. By lunchtime, Remus was absolutely starved and gobbled down incredible amounts of food. His Herbology class went smoothly, for Malia chittered away so happily that Remus couldn’t help but forget his pain for a bit and chat back. At dinner, Remus couldn’t eat. Though he was famished, he felt sick and didn’t trust himself not to throw up anything he put in his mouth. After dinner, Remus was restless. He couldn’t read, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t do much other than sit on his bed and think. Finally, his watch beeped - it was 8:00, the time McGonagall had told him to head down to her office. He stood on shaky legs and walked down to meet his Professor. When he knocked, the door swung open and McGonagall stood in the entrance, looking grim. Remus avoided her gaze, feeling more ashamed than ever for putting McGonagall through this.  _ I should’ve stayed home where I couldn’t bother or hurt anybody _ , Remus thought dejectedly. He said nothing though, silently following McGonagall to the Hospital Wing. Madame Pomfrey looked just as grave as McGonagall. 

“Now, this is where I leave you, Remus,” McGonagall said. Remus could only nod and keep walking. Neither Madame Pomfrey nor Remus spoke. Remus was led outside to a huge tree, with branches that moved with brutal force.  _ So  _ this _ is the Whomping Willow _ , Remus thought. He watched as Madame Pomfrey floated a branch to touch a knot at the base of the tree. A tunnel opened between some of the massive tree’s roots and Madame Pomfrey instructed him to crawl through and walk through the tunnel until he reached the big antechamber. 

“And I’ll come get you about an hour after sunrise,” she promised. Remus swallowed, nodded and slipped into the tunnel, consciously avoiding his hammering heart. He walked for a few minutes before he entered a tiny room, which was connected to other rooms and stairs. Remus was shaking so badly, he could barely stand. Finally, after some hyperventilation, he calmed down enough to remove his clothes and put them somewhere high up. Years of experience had taught him that the wolf would tear through anything it could reach. Sitting on the floor in a with his arms around his knees, Remus could do nothing except wait. Eventually, after what felt like 2 hours but was really more like 10 minutes, Remus’ muscles tensed up and his ears popped. Popped, and then burned in pain as they sprouted fur, changed from round to pointed and migrated to the top of his head. Panting, Remus screamed through his teeth, knowing that his ears were always the first to go. Next, his hands and feet exploded into agony. His nails all fell off one by one, to be replaced with talons and claws. His skin felt like fire as fur grew along every inch of his body. With what little humanity he had left, Remus braced himself for the worst part - his face. His eyes were stretched wider, and pulled higher up on his face. It felt like needles jabbing them, and Remus writhed against his invisible torturer. His jaw broke with a  _ snap! _ and his lips receded in size. His teeth twisted and elongated into fangs, which cut into his chin. Finally, his nose - it was broken and manipulated to different levels each transformation. Sometimes it only took one break and one twist for it to manifest into a snout. Sometimes it took more than ten. Tonight, Remus wasn’t so lucky. After feeling his nose break over and over again, twelve times in a row, Remus’ nose finally pushed forward into a snout. Remus yelled while his whole face was practically pulled apart again to fit his enlarged appendage. After a few seconds, though, his cries turned into howls and his mind went dark, the Wolf taking over, leaving no room for the little boy inside. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm back! 
> 
> i got a record player for christmas! but i have no records! 
> 
> sorry for the mini cliffhanger-type thing! i just thought the chapter would've been too long if it covered the aftermath of his transformation too :((


	6. Chapter 5

When Remus woke up, his entire body hurt. His breath rattled with every shaky inhale. He could feel the blood crusted on him, and his head felt like an anvil being struck with an iron hammer. There was no denying that it had been a very rough moon. 

After a few minutes of laying on the ground and collecting his strength, Remus forced himself into a sitting position. There, he tried to take in his surroundings; his vision was overly-bright, but even that couldn’t dim the amount of blood he saw splashed all over the room. There was urine in the front right corner, and scratch marks all around the room, covering the ceiling, floor, walls and most of the furniture. Remus wrinkled his nose at the stench, and grasped for the shelf above his head, heaving himself up. 

It was past sunrise, and he estimated that he had about ten minutes before Pomfrey showed up. When he took a step towards the bathroom to get cleaned up, however, he cried out in pain. He looked down and almost threw up - his entire left foot was destroyed and mangled. There was a huge chunk missing from it, and all of his toes were so gnawed, they were stumps. Knowing that walking would be next to impossible, Remus sat back down, thinking about what to do. 

Although he knew that his foot would heal, but have terrible scars, Remus felt incredible despair. Not wanting Madame Pomfrey to discover him in such a mess, he tried to clean himself up as best he could. He wiped his hands on the mangled tablecloth that was right in front of him and tried to wipe down the rest of his body, too. Though still dirty, gory and generally disgusting, Remus did feel slightly better. He looked down and saw that his pinky toe was about a tenth grown back. Sighing in relief, Remus laid his head back against the wall.

Just then, he heard footsteps from the entrance room. 

“Mr. Lupin?” Madame Pomfrey’s voice called. She sounded very distressed, so Remus could only guess how much shit had been in the other room. 

“In here!” he rasped, then winced. His vocal cords were most definitely strained. Remus barely had time to wrap himself in the remains of the tablecloth before Madame Pomfrey entered the room and immediately uttered a little scream. She looked around wildly, before her gaze landed on Remus. She rushed towards him. 

“Oh my goodness, oh my goodness,” she muttered. “I-I had no  _ idea _ that it was as bad as this, I-” she cut herself off when she saw his foot, her skin turning paper-white. 

“It… it looks worse than it is,” murmured Remus, feeling awful. He had known this would happen! He told Professor McGonagall that no one should have to see him after a transformation! Hadn’t he said that it would be horrifying? That  _ he  _ was horrifying? 

“No it doesn’t,” Pomfrey snapped. Remus looked at the ground, embarrassed and ashamed. He was a monster, there was no denying it. 

“Alright,” Pomfrey said, sounding more demure. “I’m going to levitate you back to school, Remus. I have here an old Invisibility Cloak that Dumbledore gave me, and I’ll put it over you so no one would see you. Mind you, it’s quite early, so I doubt we’ll run into anyone anyways.” 

With that, she pointed her short wand at Remus, shouting: “Mobilicorpus!” 

Remus’ body felt weightless as it was lifted into the air. Despite his pain, he cracked a grin. He felt like he was flying! Madame Pomfrey flung the cloak over him and, when he looked down, he was slightly disappointed. While his body was incredibly difficult to see, it wasn’t completely invisible. He supposed that Dumbledore’s invisibility cloak was a little worn.

Pomfrey floated him all the way to the Hospital Wing and, as she had suspected, they didn’t run into anyone. She dropped him onto a hospital bed in an empty closed-off ward and immediately started bustling about, pulling potions out of drawers and such. 

“Drink these,” she ordered, shoving a handful of potions at Remus. He recognized none of them - his family couldn’t afford painkilling potions or dittany, so Remus usually had to heal without them. He hesitantly pulled the stopper out of the nearest bottle, wrinkling his nose at the sickly sweet smell. The liquid inside was a glowing baby blue, and had little dots of magenta. He took a small sip and almost gagged - the potion tasted very much like the smell. It was so sweet, it was almost sour. Madame Pomfrey gave him no time to recover before she was telling him to drink up the rest of it. Nine potions later, Remus’ head was pounding, and his eyes were dropping closed. 

“I have to get up for school,” he mumbles dazedly, trying to push himself out of the bed. 

“Absolutely not!” said Pomfrey firmly. “Your foot is a bloody stump, and the rest of you is so mauled, there are more scratches on you than skin.” Remus tried to protest, tried to fight to get up, but, after only a few gibberish sentences, he passed out, his vision going dark once again. 

When Remus awoke, he felt like shit. Although, usually he felt like  _ absolute  _ shit. It was progress, and he would take it. Pomfery’s potions had apparently worked. He tried to push himself up and check his watch, but his muscles wouldn’t cooperate. Gritting his teeth, Remus wriggled around until he was in a semi-sitting position, panting from his exertion. He concentrated very hard on lifting his right arm, and, after some spasms, he finally turned it enough to be able to read the time.  _ 1:30?!  _

Remus’ eyes widened in horror. He had missed class - his number one rule was to not appear suspicious, and there was nothing more suspicious than missing class in your first week. Remus’ breathing turned heavy - someone knew. One of his roommates had noticed that he didn’t come back all night, and knew it was a full moon. He would be killed, and his parents arrested and-

“Oh, wonderful, you’re up,” Madame Pomfrey said as she pushed his curtains back, looking much more relieved than Remus thought she ought to. She noticed his panicked state and frowned. “Remus, dear, what  _ is _ the matter?” 

“I-I,” he stammered. “I… I missed class. Someone will have figured it out! I need to go, need to tell my parents, tell them to run…” Remus trailed off when he noticed the sympathetic look Pomfrey was giving him. 

“Remus, no one’s figured anything out. Professor McGonagall and I spoke, and we’ve decided on a cover story for you - if anyone asks, you will say your mother is ill. We already had to tell Miss Lily Evans this story.” Remus’ eyebrows furrowed. He supposed Lily was asking about him because they were in the same classes, and she didn’t want him to fall behind. It was nice of her, but it was also troublesome - they weren’t friends, after all, they only ever talked about school. 

“O-okay…” Remus answered slowly. “I guess that could work.” Pomfrey gave him another potion bottle, telling him it was a painkilling one. Remus once again tried to raise his arm. This time, he got it off the bed. Once Pomfrey put the potion in his palm, though, his muscles failed and the potion landed softly on the bed, Remus’ arm right beside it. He sighed, dejected, before steeling himself to try again. Before he could even move his arm an inch, though, Pomfrey was pulling the stopper of the bottle and trying to feed him. Not being used to people being so close to touching him, Remus started. Madame Pomfrey tutted at the fear in his eyes. 

“Honestly, boy, I’m not going to hurt you. You’re my patient, and your wellbeing is my top priority while I’m with you.” Remus almost snorted at what he perceived to be a blatant lie. No person would ever prioritize the health of a monster, no matter how motherly they might appear. Instead, he took a deep breath and lifted his arm, determined.

Warily, Pomfrey put the potion in his hand. This time, he clung onto it with all his might. Thankfully, it was still opened, so all he had to do was bring it to his mouth and drink. He spilled some on his chin, but overall, he got most of it down. Immediately, he felt a little better. His muscles loosened a bit, and his foot pain was more of a throb than a burn. 

“Wow,” he said, awed. He then lifted his arms, staring at them. “Brilliant,” he whispered. He gingerly lifted the blankets that had somehow gotten on top of him, and threw them to the side. Instead of the scrap of tablecloth that he had been wearing, Remus now wore a pale yellow hospital gown. He stared down at his foot. His toes were mostly grown back, but eerie red scratches still adorned every inch of it. He knew it would be painful for at least three days, and some of those deeper gashes would scar for sure. Remus swung his legs over the side of the bed, testing them. His foot protested at the small movement, but Remus ignored it - he’d had some worse injuries during and after full moons. 

He carefully put his feet on the ground and propelled off the bed into a standing position. Though his legs trembled, he didn’t fall over or even sway. Remus grinned to himself. 

“Right,” he announced. “I’ve got to get to Charms.” Madame Pomfrey gave him a pitying look again. Remus frowned. “What?” he asked. 

“Er… Remus...,” Pomfrey started. “It’s Saturday.” Remus paused, trying to make sense of her words. 

“Saturday?” he asked. “No, the full moon was on a thursday. It’s friday.” 

“Remus, you were unconscious for a whole day. We tried to wake you, but…” she trailed off. Remus didn’t answer for a few moments. 

“Is that why my throat feels so dry?” he asked distractedly. Taking a deep breath, Remus tried to control his anxiety. “It’s okay,” he said, talking to himself as much as the mediwitch. “You told everyone that I was away because my mother was ill?” he asked, as he slowly paced, his sore muscles adjusting to the movement. 

“That’s right,” she said.    
“Then… it’s more believable if I was gone for more than a few hours anyway,” Remus mused. Pomfrey nodded and Remus nodded back. “Alright,” he said. “I need a change of clothes so I can go back to Gryffindor Tower. I probably have a lot of stuff to catch up on,” he fretted. Madame Pomfrey gave him a small smile and handed him a Hogwarts robe that looked about his size. 

“Er… that’s not mine,” Remus said, blushing; his robe was much more shabby than that sleek-looking one.    
“Yes, it is,” Pomfrey answered. “Albus had a word with Mme Malkin, and she agreed to make one, free of charge. Just take it, Remus,” she added. Remus frowned again. 

“But… he didn’t tell her I was a…?” he asked, ashamed of his abnormality once again.    
“No, of course not,” Pomfrey replied. “He just said it was for a sick student. Mind you, not many people say no to Dumbledore, so I doubt he would’ve needed to give any reasoning at all.” 

Remus frowned harder. That didn’t seem right. Dumbledore shouldn’t be above other people just because he was brilliant. Remus scowled at the robe. 

“I don’t want it,” he said bluntly, shoving it back at her, feeling slightly sick. His father gave up the money that would’ve bought himself a winter cloak for Remus’ robe, and he’d be damned if he wore any other. Pomfrey gave him a scrutinizing look, but Remus ignored her.    
“Very well,” she replied, tucking the garment back under her arm. “It’ll be here if you change your mind. In any case, Professor McGonagall took the liberty of grabbing some of your clothes from your trunk - you can wear those, and change into your robes when you get back to your dormitory.” She pointed to a small stack of clothes on the bedside table. Remus nodded and took the clothes, his body aching the longer he used it. Ignoring the pain and hoping Pomfrey didn’t notice, Remus thanked the witch profusely before she left the room, allowing him time to change.

Noticing a full-length mirror next to the door, Remus walked over to get a better look. Thank goodness, his face didn’t have any scratches on it - he’d been rather lucky in that regard, ever since he was a kid. He only had one scar on his face - a thin line that passed straight across his mouth. When he was nervous, he often used his teeth to play with the little indenture. Other than that, his face remained clean, which meant that no one could tell he had an unusual amount of scars, seeing as he could cover his body.

Remus stared at the rest of his body; his torso and arms were criss-crossed with healing gauges, only one of which looked like it would scar. It went right down his ribs, which explained his earlier shaky breath. Remus looked at his feet - his left one looked even more destroyed in the mirror. He was surprised he could even stand on it. The toes still looked a touch too short, and there was more red colouring the skin than beige. 

Remus came back to his face. He sighed at his reflection. He thought the day of the full had been bad - his skin looked even more pale, probably from all the blood loss, which only contrasted more with the bruise-like shadows under his  [ amber eyes ](https://guycounseling.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/amber-eyes-in-a-male-678x381.jpg) . His irises looked dim, despite the whole day of sleep he had gotten. 

Thinking about all the physical signs that pointed towards him being a werewolf made Remus feel ill. He was thankful he hadn’t eaten in a  _ very _ long time, because he was certain it would’ve ended up on the floor. Instead of ruminating on nightmares of being discovered, Remus finished changing and exited the room, wanting to go back up to his dormitory and catch up on whatever he had missed. Maybe he would ask Lily for her notes. After all, she seemed like a very nice person so far, and Remus felt pretty confident that she wouldn’t mind lending him her notes for a day. 

Madame Pomfrey agreed to let him leave, but only after getting him to promise that he would come back before classes on Monday to make sure his foot healed up alright. She looked slightly haunted as she mentioned the foot injury and Remus winced. It must have been awful for her to crawl into that house and see a whirlwind of blood, urine and scratch marks. Putting the matter from his mind, Remus waved at her and departed, heading for his dorms. His foot killed him with every step he took. He distracted himself by thinking of reading - his charms book was almost finished, and he wanted to get a book on Herbology. Hopefully, he could find a cheap flower that his mother would like. 

When he got to the portrait of Agnes, he smiled. 

“Hullo,” he said, trying to sound cheerful despite his injuries. Her smile was huge as she waved at him from inside her frame. 

“Why, hello, Remus,” she said happily. “Going in?” she added. 

“Yep, just back from the Ho..me,” Remus remembered to say that he had gone home to visit his sick mum.    
“I’d heard about that,” the Fat Lady said sadly. “I’m so sorry,” she said. Remus felt a little guilty, lying about something so important, but he knew it was for an important cause. 

“Well…” he said, “she’s okay right now. She had an attack but she’s feeling better,” he invented wildly. He didn’t even know what sickness they were pretending his mother had. 

Agnes gave him a few more sympathetic words, shaking her head in pity. 

“Er- dragorium,” he said after a pause. The portrait swung open and Remus steeled himself to crawl through the hole. He had to sort of jump to get to the entrance, and his foot screamed in pain. He felt all the blood drain from his face and rush to his foot, but he tried to ignore his agony and wiggled on. Finally, he got to the end. It was a two-foot drop or so from the portrait hole, and Remus went down before anyone could be suspicious about his time-consuming entrance. 

His feet hit the ground, and it took all of Remus’ efforts not to cry out. He locked his jaw and swallowed his tears, blinking once or twice extra to make sure he wouldn’t cry. 

Silently, trying not to limp, Remus walked slowly up to his dorm. He swung the door open and was horrified to find that it wasn’t empty. Murdock and Baas were nowhere to be seen, but Pettigrew, Potter and Black were all in there. James and Sirius were reading a Quidditch magazine on the latter’s bed, Peter looking on enviously, playing chess against an imaginary player. None of them had yet to notice Remus, which was amazing. The door didn’t make noise when it opened, only when it closed, which meant that he could turn around right now and head down to the Library… 

Just as he had decided to leave, Peter looked around and caught his eye. 

“Oh- hey Remus!” he said excitedly. 

“Er… hey Peter,” he answered, nervous. 

“You wanna play Wizard’s chess?” Peter asked, eyes shining. Remus felt so badly for the bloke that he agreed half-heartedly, trying to walk normally over to Peter’s table.    
“Oi Lupin,” James said. “Where were ya?” Remus, if possible, paled a little more and looked over at the two other boys. James was giving him a merely curious look, and Sirius looked neutral. 

“Er- my mum’s sick,” he muttered. “I had to go up and visit her, in case…” and he trailed off, content with his acting. 

“Blimey,” said James, face sympathetic. “I’m so sorry.”

Peter nodded in agreement, giving Remus a sad expression. Sirius’ expression, on the other hand, darkened and Remus couldn’t fathom why. James could, apparently, because he quickly started raving about Quidditch and asking Black a bunch of questions. 

Remus raised his eyebrows, but said nothing, starting his chess game with Peter. 

12 moves later, his borrowed king had been demolished, and his pieces were a hissing at him angrily. Peter gave him a sheepish smile and Remus smiled back sincerely. Although Remus hated losing, he had a feeling that it wasn’t often Peter was better than people at something. 

“Wow,” he applauded. “Crikey, you’re good.” 

Peter’s smile grew, and he ducked his head, blushing. Realizing that staying any longer would be borderline friendly, Remus then said his mild goodbyes to all three boys, grabbed his charms book and headed down to the Common Room. He went straight for his newly discovered secret chair, and sat down with a relieved sigh. He fought the urge to check his foot and checked the time before plopping open his book.  _ 4:00 already, wow, _ he mused.

It only took him an hour to finish his book. He quite liked the idea of Charms, but perhaps not as much as Transfiguration. Remus idly tapped his foot and smiled a bit when he realized it felt a little better. 

He decided to go down to the Library before supper to grab that Herbology book. 

Once there, he went for the Herbology section and looked for a book on magical flowers and their merchandise. He finally found one that looked like it was fairly new -  _ 1001 magical flowers and where to find or buy them.  _ He wrinkled his nose at the title - he didn’t think it was very poetic or clever. Shrugging, Remus walked to the front desk to check the book out. 

“Remus?” he heard from behind him as he was getting ready to leave. Turning, he saw bright green eyes looking up at him in sympathy. 

“Hi, Lily,” he said timidly. 

“I…” she seemed to not know what to say for a second before she put a smile on her face. “Listen, you missed a bunch of classes and Friday and I was wondering if you needed my notes.”

“Really? That’d be awesome, thanks so much Lily!” he said happily. “Should I pay you in galleons or sickles?” he joked. 

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” she said, and Remus felt badly that she didn’t like his joke. “The first one’s always free,” she added mischievously, eyes twinkling. Remus grinned at her. 

“So, what’re you checking out?” And they ended up sitting at a table and discussing the books they’d already read in the five or six days they’d been at Hogwarts. 

Lily, it turned out, had also read a Charms book for beginners, but a different one. They swapped information and spells. Lily told him about one that would make an area soundless, and they tried it out on their table. Remus tested it by letting out an exaggerated high-pitched scream, and Lily laughed. Remus smiled as no one looked their way. 

“That’s amazing!” he exclaimed. Lily told him about the limitations, though - it only worked on human sounds. So, if they blew on a trumpet or something, everyone could hear it, because the sound came out of an instrument. They agreed that it was still incredibly useful. 

“The book said that all teachers know how to break the spell, though,” Lily said regretfully. “Not that I would ever talk during class!” she added hastily. Remus laughed and she smiled ruefully. 

Just then, the dinner bell rang. 

“Holy hell, we’ve been here for an hour!” Remus exclaimed. Now it was Lily’s turn to laugh. They walked to dinner together, and it was only when they went their separate ways that Remus realized he had been talking to her like he might a friend. 

_ No, that’s ridiculous,  _ said one part of his brain.

**_Well, you did just talk to her for over an hour, and enjoy it,_** said the other. 

_ But it was school related! Books! And Spells! It wasn’t like we were talking personally!  _

**_Whatever you say._ **

Remus firmly told his brain to stop talking, and marched to the end of the table where no one sat, determined to make up for his lapse of judgement in the Library. 

Sunday passed by much more successfully, but much more slowly. Alone all day, except for when he quickly grabbed and returned Lily’s notes, making sure not to talk to her for more than a moment or two, time seemed to be going by at a snail’s pace. At dinner, he realized that he had forgotten to go to Pomfrey’s all day, and didn’t want to go tomorrow before classes. 

So, after eating his fair share, Remus headed down to the Hospital Wing. 

“Ah, Remus,” Pomfrey said when he knocked on her door. “Come in, come in.” 

Remus entered and realized that it was an enormous office. Pomfrey had him sit on the bed and show her his foot. They both looked at it, and Pomfrey winced. Remus averted his gaze, ashamed as always. Pomfrey put some bandages on it, told him to come back the next night so she could change them, and sent Remus on his way. 

That night, Remus read his Herbology for a long time, before climbing into his bed around 11:00, after all the other boys had gone to bed. 

There, he mused about his first week at Hogwarts. Admittedly, the moon had been awful, worse than many nights at home. He supposed it was the stress and the new environment. Usually, if he was having a stressful time before the moon, the wolf would know, and take it out on its own body. He hoped the next moon would be better.

Otherwise, his week had been pretty great! He was ahead in three of his classes, seeing as he had read about Charms and Transfiguration, and his dad had taught him lots of Defense. Smiling at the thought of absence from the moon for a while, Remus fell asleep wondering what the second week would be like. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright, so now that the first moon is over, the story might become a bit more fast-paced
> 
> ok should I keep it one hundred per cent canon compliant? because I was thinking of having Remus befriend Peter first, and then Sirius and James, but Rowling says that Remus, Sirius and James became friends, and then they all befriended Pete.  
> What do y'all think?


End file.
